Desert of the Real Economic Analysis

Oxidane?

2011-03-31T04:49:00.000-07:00

April Fools! It is currently April 1st in about on-half of the world. So it is TECHNICALLY true that it is April Fools Day.

And on the subject of "technically true."

Oxidane is the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry term for water. Water is also called dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO) and this term is often used in these psuedoscience hoaxes.

The purpose of this post was to demonstrate the human propensity for irrational fear when given only partial information, or information calculated to mislead.

To try and overcome irrationality in my life, there are at least two important rules that I live by:

If it cannot be measured, it did not happen.

If it is not testable or observably repeatable, it cannot happen.

Oh, and I do not care if I end a sentence with a preposition.

Happy April 1st, somwhere in the world. And by the way, 20 years ago today I began my career in healthcare law, finance, reimbursement, policy, HIT. Nothing has been the same since, yet it has made all of the difference. I guess the joke was on me.

THAT ELDRICH DAY OF ECOMOMIC MAYHEM THIS WAY COMES...NOT ELECTION DAY, HALLOWEEN!

2010-10-29T10:55:00.001-07:00

Below is a reprint of a personal favorite of the Author's from October of 2008.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: Where but in the Desert of the Real could the Dismal Science of Economics combine with the Hollowing Heart of Evil that Hosts that Most Horrific of Harvest Festivals?]

HALLOWEEN ECONOMICS 201

Halloween 2007 is a fading memory, unlike the candy left in dishes and the decorations that are still to be removed from offices and homes in all corners of the nation.

Halloween Economics 101 goes something like this. “Halloween Scares Up Business”. This story in the Lawrence Kansas World-Journal informs us that Halloween is a retail mainstay in the American Economy.

Candy and costume sales peak. Decorations of all sorts fly, crawl or lumber down retail aisles. And alcohol sales rise with the ubiquitous Halloween parties.

And except for some Christian fundamentalists, everybody loves Halloween. Everybody, it appears, but some economists. The truth is, Halloween challenges some economic truths right down to their skeletal essence.

Halloween, like its less macabre cousin, Christmas, is economically “inefficient”. And it reveals that the economic uber-man, the foot soldier and general of microeconomics, the flesh and bones that manipulate the invisible hand, the “Rational Economic Actor”, is as peckish as a poltergeist.

PUTRID PROSE AND CLICHÉ ALERT. IF YOU WEREN’T SCARED OFF ALREADY.

Kevin Hassett is an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Likely a fine fellow most of the time, while in his economist trance, Hassett is both Great Pumpkin smasher and the Grinch’s meaner brother.

Hassett’s howlings start like this:

Holidays are a time when Americans kick back and engage in activities that make no economic sense whatsoever. Of all the terrors lurking in the streets and alleys across the U.S. tomorrow night, the economics of Halloween may be the most horrific.

EVILLY INEFFICENT IS THE HALLOWEEN HOLIDAY.

Economists haven't adopted the vainglorious practice of physicists and applied numbers to their laws, but if they did, the first law of economics would be that lump-sum transfers are more economically efficient than in-kind transfers. If you are going to give a gift to somebody, you should just give them the money. They will be a better judge of the best way to spend it.

This is chapter and verse of microeconomic theory. Individual actors, in best possession of their perception of needs and wants, and being best able to value goods and services to maximize the utility of their choices, make the most rational and efficient economic decisions.

‘Twas ever thus.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD-WEIGHT LOSS.

Hassett continues:

This is no laughing matter. The scale of the problem is immense. The National Confectioners Association estimates that 2005 Halloween sales were $2.1 billion, easily making Halloween the biggest candy season. This year, sales will certainly be higher.

What percentage of those sales end up providing candy that individuals don't really like? If my own careful scientific study of Halloween bags is any guide, perhaps about 75 percent.

It's not the dead that concern me about Halloween. And it is not the impact of all that sugar on the weight of our kids. No, it's the dead-weight loss, or pointless lost utility of the entire enterprise. That likely has a dollar value that exceeds $1.5 billion annually. American citizens squander more than a billion and a half dollars a year on an economically inefficient holiday.

BRAIN DEAD YET?

Here’s the bat’s-eve view: Hassett, in the quote above, describes Halloween as an enterprise. In other words, think of Halloween as a gigantic wealth transfer mechanism. Preening and wretchedly wistful adults transfer many millions of dollars (in bite-sized increments) to marauding and mooching children.

But the kids would rather have money, computer gaming gift certificates, or text-messaging credits. As they say in the Mafia and on the middle-school playground, “cash makes no enemies.”

A PHANTASMIGORIC FIX OR A FUTILE FANTASY??

Hassett proposes an economic solution, a pumkintudious “patch”, if you will.

Many schools prohibit children from taking Halloween candy onto the premises. That is exactly the wrong policy. Schools should encourage all children to bring their entire haul to school, and allow them a lengthy period to trade candies among themselves. That way, the Take 5s and the 100 Grand bars will find their way to individuals who cherish them.

And if that doesn’t work, he raises the foreboding specter of the brutish hand of the ghouls of government.

A final measure would be to take on inefficient candy-giving at the source. As a conservative, I usually oppose heavy-handed regulation, but in this case, the stakes are too high. Perhaps confectioners should be required to only sell their Halloween candy in bags that mix many different types. That way, when families put the candy out for the trick-or-treaters, bowls will be filled with a wide variety of different types of candy, and each new child will be able to pick the confection that suits his or her fancy.

HMM. FEDERAL FIAT PROMOTING GREATER CHOICE AND MORE EFFICIENT ECONOMIC EXCHANGES? SOMEWHERE IN THERE COULD BE A HORRIBLY HEALTHY HEALTHCARE FINANCING SOLUTION.

WE APPEAR TO HAVE TOO MUCH TIME TODAY IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

Repost from 9.20.2008. How Soon We Forget How Low it Got, and How it Got There.

2010-10-29T10:47:00.000-07:00

THOUGHTS AT THE TIME OF THE MARKET MELTDOWN

All week the Author has been asking the question: "What crashed the financial markets so fast. "Through which gate did the Vandals enter?”

The financial decline has been festering for a long time. Real estate reeling, mortgages in meltdown. Liquidity lacking. But what changed so quickly and so ominously?

Or what, as the New York Times article “Congressional Leaders Stunned by Warnings,“ spooked the Senators speechless?

From the NYT article of today (9.20.2008):

It was a room full of people who rarely hold their tongues. But as the Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, laid out the potentially devastating ramifications of the financial crisis before congressional leaders on Thursday night, there was a stunned silence at first.

Mr. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had made an urgent and unusual evening visit to Capitol Hill, and they were gathered around a conference table in the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“When you listened to him describe it you gulped," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.

As Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, put it Friday morning on the ABC program “Good Morning America,” the congressional leaders were told “that we’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system, with all the implications here at home and globally.”

TO QUOTE FRED WILLIARD, “WHA’ HAPPENED?”

John Mauldin publishes several investment newsletters. In September 19th’s Newsletter entitled “Betting on Financial Armageddon”, Mauldin swings the spotlight onto the padlocked commercial paper market. (Commercial paper is a short-term unsecured promissory note that large institutions use to borrow and lend cash to other institutions.)

Want to see in graph form how bad it got and what spooked Paulson, Bernanke and company to act so quickly? Look at these graphs from my friends at Casey Research. 30day commercial paper went to 5% from 3% a week ago. The market was literally freezing. And the amount of paper issued is in free fall. Commercial paper is the life blood of the financial and business world. Without it commerce will soon grind to a halt.

Two charts posted above this article demonstrate the precipitous decline in the commercial paper market.

The Congressional leaders quoted in the New York Times above make similar reference to a strangling credit market:

Although Mr. Schumer, Mr. Dodd and other participants declined to repeat precisely what they were told by Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Paulson, they said the two men described the financial system as effectively bound in a knot that was being pulled tighter and tighter by the day.

“You have the credit lines in America, which are the lifeblood of the economy, frozen.” Mr. Schumer said. “That hasn’t happened before. It’s a brave new world. You are in uncharted territory, but the one thing you do know is you can’t leave them frozen or the economy will just head south at a rapid rate.”

GOLDEN PARACHUTING INTO THE ABYSS

Currently, and over the next few days, the Congress and the outgoing administration will be negotiating over the terms of a financial “rescue” plan that has an undetermined chance of indeterminate success over an undefined time frame.

As the damage appears and the plan develops, the Author will continue to post, analyze, and prognosticate.

WE HOPED THAT IT WOULD NOT HAVE COME TO THIS IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

Dave "Rocket" Shearer 1958-1979

2009-08-27T11:58:00.000-07:00

Rocket was my friend and neighbor that died of suffocation on August 28, 1979. The image of Rocket dead on the floor of his bedroom is seared into my memory. It is the last indelible mark left by a remarkable young man.

Rocket was a strong kid and developing into a gentle man. The root words of gentleman. He was a friend to many and as good a guy as I have ever known.

Thirty years have passed since the death of Rocket. Years that are lesser for his absence.

Go in Peace, Bro.

SORROW AND REGRET IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

IS THS UNITED STATES ALL THAT MUCH DIFFERENT FROM A TOTALITARIAN STATE?

2009-07-29T12:42:00.000-07:00

Matt Taibbi writes in Taibblog that the US government is in the business of pandering to well-heeled insurance industry (and healthcare providers) while providing the illusion of “doing something” to address a national emergency.

Taibbi writes:

Our government doesn’t exist to protect voters from interests, it exists to protect interests from voters. The situation we have here is an angry and desperate population that at long last has voted in a majority that it believes should be able to pass a health care bill. It expects something to be done. The task of the lawmakers on the Hill, at least as they see things, is to create the appearance of having done something. And that’s what they’re doing. Personally, I think they’re doing a lousy job even of that.

HEALTHCARE ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS ARE LITTLE MORE THAN A “SKIM.”

Health insurance is not rocket science. An insurer estimates what the medical expenses will be (the losses), leaves a reserve to cover extraordinary losses, and then prices in administrative costs to administer the benefits. These administrative costs include marketing costs, costs to operate the plan, take in the premiums, and pay the claims. Money is also spent to determine who is covered and who is not covered. Money is also spent to deny claims that the insurer determines are not payable.

Medicare and Medicaid do the same thing on a much larger scale. Their administrative costs are much lower than private insurers. Medicare administrative costs are approximately 3%. But even the most well run insurance companies are lucky to keep administrative costs under 10-15%. Individual and small group insurers can have administrative costs as much as 30-40%.

This is the beauty of a single-payor plan. It drastically reduces the administrative costs and puts government in the position of monopsony purchaser of health benefits. It both reduces the cost of providing the services, and its unchecked bargaining power reduces the amount of the cost of services.

Most serious students of healthcare reform recognize the benefits it would provide. And the health insurance industry recognizes that it would effectively put them out of business.

And politicians recognize that they must protect their well-heeled benefactors from the voting rabble.

In totalitarian states, the government exists to protect the ruling elite from the desires of the masses of the people. In the United States, the government exists to protect the ruling elite from voters. What, precisely, is the difference?

WE RARELY MISS THE POINT IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

THE LORDSBURG DOOR WILL JUST NOT STAY SHUT...

2009-07-22T09:13:00.000-07:00

Not a day or two goes by but that someone hits the Desert of the Real to read the posts about the illusive “Lordsburg Door”. (The Author and a friend went to Lordsburg in September of 2007 to look for the Lordsburg Door, or Gate, as it is also called.) The interest in this fantastical phenomenon, an alleged portal into other times and space, does not wane. In fact, anecdotal evidence of the basis of blog hits suggests that interest has been increasing over time.

The Author has offered to meet with anyone that has knowledge of the location of the door. He recently discovered the identity of someone that knows the person that does know the location of the Door.

He has discovered the identity of “Joanie”, the person that told the Author that the person that knows the location of the Lordsburg Door would not take the Author to see the ephemeral portal. “Joanie” says that the person with knowledge of the portal’s location will still not reveal it to the Author, or even to "Joanie".

The Author will continue to offer to travel to the Lordsburg Door with any individual that has legitimate knowledge of its location. Further, the Author will sign a non-disclosure agreement promising not to reveal the location of the portal. The Author will write a description of the Lordsburg Door, but will not identify its location. It is the Author's hope that this entreaty will bring foreward the individual that can take the Author to the Lordsburg Door.

This offer is renewed and still stands. If the individual will come forward and reveal the location to the Author, and take the Author and one other individual to the Lordsburg Door, the Author and his companion will agree in writing not to reveal the location of the portal.

WE KEEP OUR WORD IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

WHY THE US RATIONS HEALTHCARE-AND WHY WE ARE AFRAID TO ADMIT IT

2009-07-19T11:16:00.000-07:00

A common objection by critics of single-payor healthcare (and really anykind of healthcare reform in general) is that it would require the "rationing of healthcare".

But as anyone that has spent five minutes thinking about the topic knows, the nation already rations healthcare. It rations it on the basis of the ability to pay. No pay, no care.

This Sunday's edition of the New York Times features an article by Princeton professor and bioethicist Peter Singer entitled "Why we Must Ration Healthcare". The article cogently sets forth the rationing that currently takes place in America and why rationing based upon cost-benefit analysis is is neccessary to allocate the scarce resource of healthcare dollars.

QALYS REVISTED

The Singer article describes QALYs, or Quality Adjusted Life Years and the analysis of figuring out just how much is it worth to spend on one year of additional life. The Author has written on this topic several times, most recently in May of 2008.

The Singer article is worth an intense read by all Americans, especially those that oppose single-payor healtcare reform. And it pounds down the canard that large numbers of Brits and Canadians are dissatisfied with their respective healthcare systems. Here is how Singer concludes his article.

One ﬁnal comment. It is common for opponents of health care rationing to point to Canada and Britain as examples of where we might end up if we get “socialized medicine.” On a blog on Fox News earlier this year, the conservative writer John Lott wrote, “Americans should ask Canadians and Brits — people who have long suffered from rationing — how happy they are with central government decisions on eliminating ‘unnecessary’ health care.” There is no particular reason that the United States should copy the British or Canadian forms of universal coverage, rather than one of the different arrangements that have developed in other industrialized nations, some of which may be better. But as it happens, last year the Gallup organization did ask Canadians and Brits, and people in many different countries, if they have confidence in “health care or medical systems” in their country. In Canada, 73 percent answered this question affirmatively. Coincidentally, an identical percentage of Britons gave the same answer. In the United States, despite spending much more, per person, on health care, the figure was only 56 percent.

IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL, UNLIKE THE UNITED STATES, WE DO NOT HAPPILY SPEND MORE MONEY ON LESS CARE THEN CALL IT THE "BEST IN THE WORLD"!

DRIVE-BY CHILDHOOD AND THE CLOSING OF THE “WILDERNESS”

2009-07-17T01:33:00.000-07:00

In an article from the July 16th New York Review of Books entitled “Manhood for Amateurs: The Wilderness for Childhood,” Michael Chabon effectively laments the loss of the childhood spaces where kids traditionally become kids.

CHILDHOOD FROM THE SAFETY SEAT

The sandlots and creek beds, the alleys and woodlands have been abandoned in favor of a system of reservations—Chuck E. Cheese, the Jungle, the Discovery Zone: jolly internment centers mapped and planned by adults with no blank spots aside from doors marked staff only. When children roller-skate or ride their bikes, they go forth armored as for battle, and their parents typically stand nearby

…We schedule their encounters for them, driving them to and from one another's houses so they never get a chance to discover the unexplored lands between. If they are lucky, we send them out to play in the backyard, where they can be safely fenced in and even, in extreme cases, monitored with security cameras.

THE RAVINE AND OTHER PLACES

When the Author was a kid he and his friends knew their small town, the farm fields, and the abandoned gravel pit known as “The Ravine” intimately. We walked or rode bicycles or our minibikes. We lived a self-directed life as far outside of the imperious eyes of parents and other adults as was possible.

Skinned knees, sunburns and bug bites were the price of freedom and the explorative urges. And we did it all without anyone having there eye put out.

We went where we wanted, played ball every afternoon, and always came home for supper. Then we went back out again until dark, or later.

Chabon, who led a life of juvenile adventure, worries what adults might be unwittingly doing to their children’s sense of wonder and adventure. Chabon writes:

What is the impact of the closing down of the Wilderness on the development of children's imaginations? This is what I worry about the most. I grew up with a freedom, a liberty that now seems breathtaking and almost impossible. Recently, my younger daughter, after the usual struggle and exhilaration, learned to ride her bicycle. Her joy at her achievement was rapidly followed by a creeping sense of puzzlement and disappointment as it became clear to both of us that there was nowhere for her to ride it—nowhere that I was willing to let her go. Should I send my children out to play?

There is a small grocery store around the corner, not over two hundred yards from our front door. Can I let her ride there alone to experience the singular pleasure of buying herself an ice cream on a hot summer day and eating it on the sidewalk, alone with her thoughts? Soon after she learned to ride, we went out together after dinner, she on her bike, with me following along at a safe distance behind. What struck me at once on that lovely summer evening, as we wandered the streets of our lovely residential neighborhood at that after-dinner hour that had once represented the peak moment, the magic hour of my own childhood, was that we didn't encounter a single other child.

KIDS CAN STILL BE KIDS, NOT MALL RATS, IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

WHO IS THE AUTHOR?

2009-07-12T13:57:00.001-07:00

Every few years the Author pulls out his well-worn copies of the novels "Garden of Sand" and "Tatoo" and rereads them. He rereads them as frequently as he does "Huckelberry Finn" and "The Christmas Carol". Garden of Sand and Tatoo are as seminal to the Author as his birth certificate and his passport.

These novels were written by Earl Thompson, a Kansas writer that died woefully premature, in 1979 at the age of 47.

As a teenager the Author read Thompson and found a voice that sounded like his own. Thompson gave the Author a simulacrum of "permission" to put down his own thoughts.

HERE I AM, HERE I WILL BE, AND HERE I WILL FIGHT TO REMAIN.

Thompson was quoted in an interview with Esquire magazine in 1970.

My persisting values are those of that class which is trapped
between poverty that is a personal moral failure and the lure
of material reward for citizenship they can never achieve. A
class that is a persistent pain in the ass to all representative
societies, whatever their ism. People who are so early frightened
by violence anything short of death is a personal victory. And
all have been wounded.

Or, as the Author had often said, people just smart enough to stay in business, but too dumb to make any money. My people, my legacy, my fate.

The Author highly recommends these two novels. They are available on Amazon.

Reet Sausage, from the Desert of the Real!

WHEN REALITY IS NOT “REAL” ENOUGH

2009-07-12T08:48:00.000-07:00

An article in today’s New York Times entitled “Kicking Reality Up a Notch” describes technology that overlay the real world with additional information.

A COMMON EXAMPLE

Watch an NFL football game on television and you routinely see things that are not there. (No, the Author is not talking about Bret Favre’s integrity). No, it is the line that crosses the field that indicates where the first-down indicator is located.

The technology, developed by Sportvision and called 1st and Ten, is an early commercial example of a field of computer science called augmented reality, in which the real world is overlaid with virtual information. Once the stuff of science fiction, augmented reality is now also making its way to smartphones, thanks to advances in both hardware and software.

USE YOUR CELL PHONE INSTEAD OF FODORS.

People in Amsterdam who download a free application called Layar on their cellphones can look through the camera and see information about nearby restaurants, A.T.M.’s, and available jobs displayed in front of buildings that house them. This information is provided by companies like Hyves, the Dutch social networking site, and ING, the financial services company. The businesses pay a fee to SPRXmobile, the privately held company based in Amsterdam that developed Layar.

Layar is available in the Netherlands for phones running on the Android operating system developed by Google. Maarten Lens-FitzGerald, a co-founder of SPRXmobile, says it will be marketed later this year in the United States, Germany and Britain.
A similar product for Android phones, called Wikitude.me, provides information on 800,000 points of interest around the world, according to Philipp Breuss-Schneeweis, founder of Mobilizy, the Austrian company that developed Wikitude.me. Much of this content comes from Wikipedia, he said.

TAKE TWO ASPRIN AND THE MACHINE WILL SHOW ME WHERE IT HURTS.

It is predicted that healthcare would benefit from such technologies.
Augmented reality will “reinvent” many industries, including health care and training, Mr. Inbar predicted. Already, researchers at the Technical University of Munich are looking at ways to display X-ray and ultrasound readings directly on a patient’s body. A research project at BMW is exploring how an augmented-reality view under the hood might help auto mechanics with diagnostic and repair work.

The Author is a bit resistant to such technologies. He has trouble with just plain reality, so augmented reality might be a bit flummoxing.

REALITY IS JUST ANOTHER CONSTRUCT IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

IT WAS 30 YEARS AGO TODAY...

2009-07-11T14:08:00.000-07:00

Skylab, the 1970s era space station, plummeted to earth on this day in 1979. It fell into the Indian Ocean and Western Australia.

A friend owned an old pinball machine based on the Skylab motif.

Skylab was built from the third stage of a Saturn V launch rocket.

TELSTAR 1

2009-07-10T11:22:00.000-07:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TELSTAR

2009-07-10T11:20:00.000-07:00

Satellites are now as ubiquitous as jet airliners and ocean-going tankers. Use of satellites in our daily lives is as common as watching television or finding the nearest Burger King restaurant on GPS. It was not always thus.

IT WAS 47 YEARS AGO TODAY.

On July 10, 1962, the first communications satellite, Telstar 1, was launched by a Delta Rocket into an elliptical orbit. (Today’s communication satellites are typically launched into geosynchronous orbits.)

Telstar relayed television signals and multiplexed telephone signals. It went out of service in February of 1963. Ironically, its service life was cut short by the explosion of a US high altitude nuclear explosion.

Telstar 1 was replaced by Telstar 2 in May of 1963. Both satellites are still in orbit, although neither is operational.

CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL ICON.

Telstar was a cultural icon. The British Band the Tornados recorded a song named Telstar and this song was the first by a British band to reach Number 1 on the US pop charts. (This was the pre-Beatles era).

The song Telstar was later covered by the rock band the Ventures.

TELSTAR IS ALSO AN ICON IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

A POWERFUL USE FOR A COMMON SUBSTANCE.

2009-07-08T15:28:00.000-07:00

LET’S SEE IF THE AUTHOR CAN DO THIS PIECE WITHOUT PUNS OR PERFIDIOUS ALLITERATION.

A childhood crank call went something like this:

Name three cars that start with “P”?

(The Author will play) “Pontiac, Plymouth, Puegot.”

“No stupid, those cars start with gas, not “P”.

Well, perhaps not for much longer.

URINE A “CLEAN” ENERGY SOURCE, PER AN ARTICLE IN DiscoveryNews.

An article from July 8th on DiscoveryNews describes how urine is a rich and potentially inexpensive source of hydrogen.

Urine-powered cars, homes and personal electronic devices could be available in six months with new technology developed by scientists from Ohio University.

Using a nickel-based electrode, the scientists can create large amounts of cheap hydrogen from urine that could be burned or used in fuel cells. "One cow can provide enough energy to supply hot water for 19 houses," said Gerardine Botte, a professor at Ohio University developing the technology. "Soldiers in the field could carry their own fuel."

Hydrogen is a potent and carbon-free source of combustion. When hydrogen combines with oxygen, it produces water. Hydrogen combustion has been touted as a solution to both oil and global climate change concerns. But there is one problem. Hydrogen takes more energy to produce than it provides

URINE IS HYDROGEN RICH AND MORE EASILY STRIPPED OF ITS HYDROGEN THAN WATER.

One molecule of urea, a major component of urine, contains four atoms of hydrogen bonded to two atoms of nitrogen. Stick a special nickel electrode into a pool of urine, apply an electrical current, and hydrogen gas is released.

Botte's current prototype measures 3x3x1 inch and can produce up to 500 milliwatts of power. However, Botte and her colleagues are actively trying to commercialize several larger versions of the technology.

A fuel cell, urine-powered vehicle could theoretically travel 90 miles per gallon. A refrigerator-sized unit could produce one kilowatt of energy for about $5,000, although this price is a rough estimate, says Botte.

And it takes less electricity to release hydrogen from urine, where it is bound to nitrogen, than it takes to separate hydrogen from oxygen, as in water.

By attaching hydrogen to another element, nitrogen, Botte and her colleagues realized that they can store hydrogen without the exotic environmental conditions, and then release it with less electricity, 0.037 Volts instead of the 1.23 Volts needed for water.

Perhaps cheap gas may one day be replaced by profligate pee.

STAND IN LINE AND PRODUCE IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

TWO WHEELS OR FOUR-YOU BE THE JUDGE

2009-05-02T08:27:00.000-07:00

Popular Mechanics magazine recently tested a Ducati Hypermotard alongside the Honda Fit and graded the test on a curve. Well, a series of curves. It was quite a test.

CHEAP THRILL OR THRIFTY ACCOMPLISHMENT?

The adrenaline rush that comes from piloting a sporty car or a hot-blooded motorcycle through a series of sinuous curves is a joy every gearhead craves. It’s not all about gunning for flat-out, maximum speed. Smoothly connect each corner with the perfect combination of velocity and precision and the experience becomes more than just a cheap thrill—it’s an accomplishment.

Such mechanized fun doesn’t have to come with a sky-high price tag or an EPA fuel-economy rating in the single digits. In fact, for less than $20,000 you can buy a vehicle that will serve as both a weekend toy and a fuel-efficient commuter. The big question is, two wheels or four? We gathered together a pair of seemingly dissimilar vehicles—a high-strung, Italian-bred Ducati Hypermotard 1100 S and a sensible, versatile Honda Fit Sport—to see how they stack up when it comes to fun, practicality and fuel efficiency. We brought them both to Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, Calif., and ran them through our usual instrumented tests. We braved many miles of Los Angeles’ famous traffic, and then, finally, we had some fun on Glendora Mountain Road, a 15-mile roller coaster of twisting, turning blacktop in Angeles National Forest. So can a sexy superbike compete with a fuel-efficient hatchback when it comes to value? Can the humble car match the bike for driving thrills? The results may surprise you.

QUITE A CHALLENGE TO PICK A WINNER

So, which one offers the best bang for the buck? There’s no easy answer. The Ducati and Honda are both fun, but we’d certainly crown the fire-breathing Hypermotard king of that battle. As a commuter, we’ll give the edge to the Fit. The Ducati can make better time, but the stiff seat and cramped foot-peg position mean this bike isn’t our first choice for a long-distance cruise. The Fit, on the other hand, would be comfortable enough for a cross-country Cannonball Run. The endgame comes down to fuel efficiency and price. Over our test route, the Honda returned a solid 29.8 mpg. But the high-strung, Italian-bred superbike delivered an incredible 48.9 mpg and cost about $1900 less. That’s the tipping point. Winner: Ducati.

BOTH CAN PARK IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

WHEN THE GODS FELL SILENT

2009-04-12T16:14:00.000-07:00

There are those rare times in one’s life when a discovery of an idea or new theory opens up a new mode of thought, an almost transcendent moment of clarity. In the Author’s case, that moment was presaged many years ago. During the week of March 14th, 1977, he read a curious book review in Time Magazine, The Lost Voice of the Gods, by Julian Jaynes.

It was a fascinating read for a kid that hid an intellectual kernel beneath an adolescent shell. But it was laid aside and the topic was only revisited a few times in the intervening 32 years. In February of this year the Author purchased the book “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” and is almost finished reading it. The thesis of the book remains controversial and on the fringes of accepted science. Yet the book remains in print and the ideas therein still banging around.

THE OWNERS MANUAL FOR THE HUMAN RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE?

According to Jaynes, humankind did not develop consciousness minds until approximately 3,000 years ago. Prior to that time, humans could think, speak, make decisions. But the introspective inner world, the “I-space” where we spend nearly all our conscious time, did not exist.

Rather, humans lived under the admonition and direction of the right hemisphere of the brain, voices that were deemed to be dead kings, and later, gods. “Greek Zombies” as one later author denoted bicameral man. (Bicameral is Jayne’s description of the condition where both sides of the brain were active in the auditory hallucinations.)

The evidence for this bicameral existence comes from the literature of the second and third centuries B.C.E. According to Jaynes, there is no consciousness in the writings extant from theses eras. From the Time magazine article in 1977:

As evidence of the switch from bicamerality to conscious life, Jaynes points to the ancient classics. "There simply is no consciousness in the Iliad, except for a few later accretions," he says. "The heroes do not wonder, ponder or decide. They are pulled around by the voices of the gods. The same is true in the early books of the Bible. Abraham isn't conscious, and Amos isn't either. Consciousness comes later, with Ecclesiastes."

In some of these later writings, Jaynes finds laments for the lost bicameral world. He notes that the Odyssey, probably coming at least 100 [1,000 is more probable] years after the Iliad, features "the wily Odysseus, the first modern hero, picking his way through a ruined and god-weakened world." In Hindu literature, the unconscious writings of the Veda give way to the subjective Upanishads, and in the Old Testament, the voices of Yahweh and prophets grow silent, replaced by subjective men wrestling with unanswered questions.

Though subdued, the voices of the right side of the brain still occasionally break through as, for example, the voices of Joan of Arc, some drug hallucinations and schizophrenia. Psychiatrists, says Jaynes, "seem to like my theory. They are literate men, and many of them say they sense something archaic in the hallucinatory voices of schizophrenics." Jaynes also folds poetry into his theory: it arose as unconscious divine speech, its mesmerizing rhythms produced by right-sided brain impulses.

EXPULSION FROM THE GARDEN OF EDEN-LOSS OF THE BICAMERAL MIND AND THE GODS THAT LIVED THEREIN?

HUMANS WERE NOT KICKED OUT OF THE “GARDEN”, THE “GARDEN” WAS KICKED OUT OF HUMANS…

Jaynes also sees the story of the Adam and Eve’s fall as a myth describing the breakdown of the bicameral mind. Writes Jaynes on page 299:

The serpent promises that “you shall be like the [gods] themselves, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5), qualities that only subjective conscious man is capable of.

Jaynes also notes that the qualities of deceit are a hallmark of consciousness, as the nonconscious bicameral humans lacked the ability to deceive. And now conscious, knowing what was gained-and what was lost-humans mourn the Fall and still seek the gods that assured them through uncounted days. And try to regain the “authority” of those voices, through oracles, divination, idols, prophecy, biblical inerrancy, and so-called “creation science”.

Over the next weeks and perhaps months the Author will continue to read and study the Origin of Consciousness in the Break Down of the Bicameral Mind and will likely post on the topic.

PROUDLY CONSCIOUS IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

NO ONE IS IN FAVOR OF GOVERNMENT WASTE, UNLESS THE GOVERNMENT IS WASTING IT ON THEM

2009-03-23T09:16:00.000-07:00

The title of this post is a “Feightnerism”. He came up with it when he worked for the Farmers Home Administration as a bankruptcy law clerk. He worked there one summer as a law student. He watched the government waste millions on farm loans. Of course the government was also in the business of supporting farmers through government largesse. Farmers farmed the government first, the soil second.

Later, the Author became a healthcare lawyer and watched the farce of medical providers “condemn” the medical financing program that made them millionaires. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of Medicare and Medicaid millionaires play golf in the sunbelt with the gains from government programs they looted.

So it is with no surprise that the Author watches the bailout debacles and the feigned indignation of the current political environment. Government, in America, has always been a money pit that is gamed and looted by powerful business interests. The returns that American industries receive on campaign contributions far exceed the returns earned on actually doing business.

AIG BONUSES FOLLOW AN AMERICAN TRADITION, SAYS CNN COMMENTARY.

A commentary on CNN.com by Julian Zelizer discusses the common US government modus operandi when bribing businesses to take actions that are required for the public good, or public necessity.

Traditionally, American politicians in times of crisis have resisted aggressive interventions by government into business which would tamper with managerial prerogatives and profits.

The political value of this strategy has been clear: It helps elected officials in the White House and Congress sell federal programs in a country stubbornly resistant to many kinds of government interventions in the private sector (though often happy with the interventions after they receive the benefits). It also dampens corporate opposition to government programs in moments when such programs are urgently needed.

Even war does not bring out patriotic sacrifice in the “Captains of American Industry. Zelizer goes onto quote Former Secretary of War Henry Stimson:

As FDR's Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, noted in his diary in 1940, "If you are going to try to go to war, or to prepare for war, in a capitalist country, you have to make business make money out of the process or business won't work." The outcome of this arrangement was that business retained enormous power over the production process and executives made money.

In the 1940s, a small group of the nation's biggest corporations received the lion's share of military contracts. Wartime agencies were staffed by "dollar-a-year men" who were business executives temporarily working for the government in exchange for a small wage. According to The New Republic, however, altruism was not their primary motivation: "Concern for the war is secondary to self-interest and the jealous protection of their competitive positions."

WHERE IS MY CHECK?

The Author did not find much honor in working with industries that lived off the government largesse. Partly because it was paid from the tax revenue of hard-working Americans, partly because it was a rigged game. The industries usually wrote the rules from which they earned their money.

Zelizer offers this advice:

During the next round of negotiations, the administration and Congress might rethink their earlier approach, indeed the approach we have taken to economic intervention since the progressive era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The federal government might place tighter regulations on the institutions receiving assistance (as it has with other recipients of government assistance, such as the poor) so that public support for the much needed interventions in this crisis doesn't suffer more political blows.

And there is the hypocrisy. Poor recipients are abject moral failures that must be ground down to obeisance while industry (and the wealthy individuals) loot with boundless zeal, steal with abandon, and pontificate with impunity.

IT ISN'T ALL ABOUT THE ANTS AND GRASSHOPPERS IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

Wal-Mart to Sell Physician Medical Records Systems

2009-03-22T12:21:00.000-07:00

An article from a recent New York Times entitled “Wal-Mart Plans to Market Digital Health Records System” announces that Wal-Mart has teamed up with Dell and eClinicalWorks to offer healthcare information systems to small physician practices.

Dell will provide the hardware for these small office practice systems. eClinicalWorks will provided the systems through a web-based interface. Like most Wal-Mart products, the system will come with a modest price tag, $25,000 for one physician, about $10,000 for each additional doc.

WILL THE DOCS PONY UP?

According to the Times Article:

Only about 17 percent of the nation’s physicians are using computerized patient records, according to a government-sponsored survey published last year in The New England Journal of Medicine. The use of electronic health records is widespread in large physician groups, but three-fourths of the nation’s doctors work in small practices of 10 physicians or fewer.

Wal-Mart’s distribution model may provide cost advantages that traditional software-resellers do not have. Wal-Mart, and Sam’s Club are good at marketing products to small businesses.

Wal-Mart, however, has the potential to bring not only lower costs but also an efficient distribution channel to cater to small physician groups. Traditional health technology suppliers, experts say, have tended to shun the small physician offices because it has been costly to sell to them. Taken together, they make up a large market, but they are scattered.

“If Wal-Mart is successful, this could be a game-changer,” observed Dr. David J. Brailer, former national coordinator for health information technology in the Bush administration.

GAMECHANGER? OR SAME OLD STORY?

Many physicians, especially older physicians, are simply resistant to change. It takes time and human resources to install and learn these systems. And it takes time away from productive activity. And in small offices, the human resources necessary to install these systems simply do not exist.

Maybe we are asking the wrong question. Why, when costs for everything are up and almost all industries are consolidating, do small physician practices proliferate? Are we overpaying for medical care allowing small and inefficient practices to flourish and practice?

Damn straight we are. Take the money and the margins out of medicine and it will revert to what it should be, a service industry with wages consistent with other professionals.

STAY HEALTHY AND HEAL FAST IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

Till Death, or the End of the Recession, Do Us Part.

2009-03-22T09:28:00.000-07:00

Sunday’s Albuquerque Journal has an article entitled “Split Decision: Economic Hard Times Making it Hard on Couples Trying to Divorce”. One thrust of the article is that warring couples cannot financially afford to divorce. They must remain in the same home or relationship ecause they cannot afford to move out.

Another point of the article is couples are renegotiating support agreements and post-divorce financial arrangements because spouses cannot meet their financial obligations because of job loss or income reduction.

The article also notes that more couples are pursuing their divorces pro se, or without an attorney.

BABY WE ARE DOOMED TO SHARE THE LAND

It was only a couple of years ago that the always prescient Author posted an article about how the real estate boom of mid-decade was permitting couples to divorce and each walk out with some equity. In “MAYBE I’LL BE THERE TO SHARE THE LAND” (Until the Value goes up Enough and then it’s Splitsville) the Author quoted a New York Times Article “Buy Low, Divorce High”:

A little-noted side effect of the property boom of the past decade has been the real-estate-enabled divorce. Home values might have slid in some markets, but in the New York City region, where prices remain high, divorce professionals like therapists and lawyers, along with real estate brokers, say unhappily married couples are cashing in appreciated homes to underwrite a split.

“The equity that there is in real estate is one of the impetuses why there are so many divorces,” said Nancy Chemtob, a Manhattan divorce lawyer, adding that the net worth of her clients has doubled in the past three years mainly thanks to real estate. The price of the average Manhattan apartment was $1.3 million as of June, up 7 percent from a year ago, according to the real estate brokers Brown Harris Stevens.

The Author then opined:

Marriages are many things, but in the Author’s opinion, they nearly all function as economic “partnerships”. Love might bring people together, but money, or the lack thereof, keep couples together or rends them apart.

Couples combine their incomes, or perhaps other skills, and their assets, into economic relationships to buy homes, rear children, operate businesses, or for other reasons. And often the “strength” or “durability” of a marriage depends on the economic state of the marriage.

When one marriage participant is financially dependent upon the other, the financially dependant participant has little choice but to remain in the relationship despite potentially negative endogenous and exogenous non-economic factors. (The Author loves using these big economic terms).

Contrast the foregoing relationship with one in which each marriage participant is financially independent or capable of being economically self-sustaining. These relationships are economically less “durable”. And rapid improvements in a marriage participant’s wealth or income can provide a quick exit from the relationship.

BUT NOW “IT’S OH LORD, STUCK IN LODI AGAIN.”

The Author makes no value judgments on this relationship between economic conditions and familial adhesion, except to note two things. First, if it ain’t the money, then what the heck else is it?

And the little children take the hindmost.

NO OFFENSE MEANT TO LODI, OR ANY OTHER LOCATION, IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

ENNUI OR ON YOU?

2009-03-20T14:15:00.000-07:00

In past posts, the author has written about economic issues that presaged the current recession. The causes are legion. Collapse of asset values, subprime mortgage collapse, decline of manufacturing capacity, the hamstringing of the regulatory mechanism, general malaise, the failure to release the “Beavis and Butthead Christmas Special” on DVD.

Just this week an article in the Christian Science Monitor highlighted the 18 percent unemployment in the author’s home town, Ligonier, Indiana. The article did not a resilency and community spirit among the rural denizens, however.

CORROSION OR RUST

We need villains. We need bonuses paid to corporate looters that plunged their companies into insolvency. We need verbal gaffes from politicians that can feed the electron-gobbling fiend that is the 24-hour news cycle. And we need a mentally-ill woman with way to many kids to care for.

(The Author does not need these diversions, but he is a misshapen misanthrope that entertains himself with this blog and trenchant cuts at what substitutes for culture.)

Ponzi schemes point the way to a wailing plutocracy. No one will ever get even with Bernie Madoff, but their righteous indignation will whip through howls of execration. The best among us condemn the theft, the worst regret only his methods. The misanthrope only wishes he could have gotten in early and gotten out in time.

The Author’s talked a little too long. He has written little and feels like he has said nothing. Good thing he doesn’t get paid for it.

MISANTHROPY IS BETTER THAN LYCANTHROPY IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

DEATH RESURRECTED. PUNK BEFORE PUNK WAS PUNK

2009-03-15T10:08:00.002-07:00

This Sunday's New York Times contains an article about a Detroit Band from the 1970s entitled "Death was Punk before Punk was Punk".

The band consisted of three brothers, David, Bobby and Dannis Hackney from Detroit. They began playing R&B in Detroit in the early 1970s before moving to rock and roll in a style of the Stooges and MC5, other proto-punk bands from Detroit.

A RESURRECTION AND A GENERATIONAL REVIVAL

The NYT article begins:

ON an evening in late February at a club here called the Monkey House, there was a family reunion of sorts. As the band Rough Francis roared through a set of anthemic punk rock, Bobby Hackney leaned against the bar and beamed. Three of his sons — Bobby Jr., Julian and Urian — are in Rough Francis, but his smile wasn’t just about parental pride. It was about authorship too. Most of the songs Rough Francis played were written by Bobby Sr. and his brothers David and Dannis during their days in the mid-1970s as a Detroit power trio called Death.

The group’s music has been almost completely unheard since the band stopped performing more than three decades ago. But after all the years of silence, Death’s moment has finally arrived. It comes, however, nearly a decade too late for its founder and leader, David Hackney, who died of lung cancer in 2000. “David was convinced more than any of us that we were doing something totally revolutionary,” said Bobby Sr., 52.

The New York Times contains a link to one of the Death's songs, "Politicians in my eyes."

Forgotten except by the most fervent punk rock record collectors — the band’s self-released 1976 single recently traded hands for the equivalent of $800 — Death would likely have remained lost in obscurity if not for the discovery last year of a 1974 demo tape in Bobby Sr.’s attic. Released last month by Drag City Records as “... For the Whole World to See,” Death’s newly unearthed recordings reveal a remarkable missing link between the high-energy hard rock of Detroit bands like the Stooges and MC5 from the late 1960s and early ’70s and the high-velocity assault of punk from its breakthrough years of 1976 and ’77. Death’s songs “Politicians in My Eyes,” “Keep On Knocking” and “Freakin Out” are scorching blasts of feral ur-punk, making the brothers unwitting artistic kin to their punk-pioneer contemporaries the Ramones, in New York; Rocket From the Tombs, in Cleveland; and the Saints, in Brisbane, Australia. They also preceded Bad Brains, the most celebrated African-American punk band, by almost five years.

Give the links a try. The music is unchallegned and feral. And a link to an enduring moment in the musical wasteland of 1970s Disco.

AGAIN WITH THE OLD SCHOOL IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

DEATH RESURRECTED. PUNK BEFORE PUNK WAS PUNK

2009-03-15T10:08:00.001-07:00

AMERICAN HEALTHCARE FINANCING-THE FINAL SOLUTION

2009-03-12T09:30:00.000-07:00

This is a repost of a peice from december 2007. It is again timely as our government debates healthcare reform,

[AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is a post the Author never expected write. For nearly all of his healthcare finance and reimbursement life, he favored market-type, or mixed-market public program solutions to the failing private health care system. He never believed that he would advocate complete and exclusive government financing of American healthcare. But the conclusion was ineluctable. Below is the story of “Why”.]

The year was 1992. The Author was a healthcare attorney with an interest in healthcare finance and reimbursement. And he knew something was wrong, massively wrong, with the healthcare finance and delivery mechanism. Healthcare was grossly expensive compared to other Western nations and a large amount of Americans were uninsured. Oh, and one more thing. By commonly calculated health outcome measures, the US lagged the Western nations that delivered lower cost universal coverage to their citizens.

In 1992, the Author also believed that the private healthcare reimbursement industry would make efficiency gains to reduce, or at least restrain, the cost of healthcare. He worked for organizations that were attempting to find such solutions. But they ultimately failed. The entrenched health insurance and delivery industry won the lobbying war in Washington and went back to business as usual.

As a person that generally favors free-market solutions, the realization that government could finance and reimburse healthcare providers with greater efficiency than private sector plans was a tough realization. But it is the only correct realization.

And nothing has changed in the intervening 15 years. Healthcare is even more costly, there are more uninsured, and measurements still lag Western Europe.

AMERICAN BUSINESS PAYING LOTS MORE FOR LOTS LESS.

American business people generally entertain the conceit that they are the best business people in the world. Some are among the top. Just as many European and Asian business people are among the top, also. But America is a business-friendly country where smart people, motivated people, can sometimes succeed and prosper.
But there is one area where American business people and corporations are comically negligent. Purchasing healthcare for their employees. They suck at it. They pay more and get less than even the (god forbid) government. Yeah, really. They munch.

Government healthcare programs run at about 3% administrative costs. The crappy coverage that American business buy for their workers have administrative costs closer to 10% or even 20%. That sounds like a mobster’s skim. Some estimates place the cost of administration of the healthcare system at 25% of all expenditures.

AMERICAN GOVERNMENT IS A MORE EFFICIENT PURCHASER OF HEALTHCARE THAN AMERICAN BUSINESS. SAY IT SILENTLY A FEW TIMES. IT GETS EASIER.

Few Americans will accept the obvious, that government financed healthcare programs operate more cheaply than private healthcare plans. The reasons are very simple. We will use Medicare as the model for government-financed healthcare.

1. The Medicare plan is a well-defined and consistently applied benefit plan. Private plans vary widely in benefits and simplicity or complexity of administration. Medicare’s consistency reduces costs of administration.

2. Medicare claims submission and reimbursement infrastructure are well-established and well-tested. This robustness of the claims adjudication mechanism reduces administrative costs.

3. Medicare eligibility is consistent over time and there is not a large amount of beneficiary turnover. The eligibility criteria for Medicare are fairly straightforward. Turn 65 and you are generally eligible for Medicare. Become disabled and eligible for SSI disability benefits and you are eligible for Medicare after an elimination period. After that, Medicare beneficiaries remain eligible for Medicare until their death.

4. The Medicare membership pool is huge. It dwarfs every private plan, and the irrational hodgepodge of state Medicaid programs. It can leverage huge economics of scale to reduce costs.

In private healthcare plans, beneficiaries move between jobs and healthcare plans. Further, employers change health benefit plans quite frequently, often every three to five years. A good deal of administrative costs are spent figuring out who is eligible and who is not. For employer-based plans, eligibility changes every month with employee turnover.

NEARLY EVERYONE INVOLVED IN HEALTHCARE FINANCE, POLICY AND REIMBURSEMENT KNOWS GOVERNMENT PLANS ARE MORE EFFICIENT THAN PRIVATE HEALTH PLANS. SO WHY DON’T THE COME OUT AND SAY IT?

The statement above comes as no surprise to anyone that knows anything about healthcare reimbursement. But given the broad ignorance of the common American, few common Americans know this. And there is another catch. Few politicians wish to acknowledge this fact. Because they know if they speak the truth, the healthcare lobby will steamroll them just as it steamrolled all meaningful healthcare reform attempts in the 1990s. The healthcare lobby has its lips around 16% of America’s Gross National Product and won’t disconnect without decapitation.

This nation is locked in an ideological and political struggle from which it probably cannot extricate itself. Republicans have no plan, and will not submit any plan, to reform healthcare financing and reimbursement. They simply lie in wait to pounce on any Democratic proposals. Probably smart politics. But disastrous policy.

Democratic policy proposals recognize the hegemony of the healthcare lobby and the heft of its war chest. The proposals offered by Democratic Presidential candidates, with the exception of long-shot Dennis Kucinich (who proposes single payor), are a sop to the insurance industry. Instead of “cutting out the middleman” and expanding government healthcare plans, these Democratic proposals will funnel government funds to purchase health benefits for the uninsured. Rewarding failure. That is what America seems best at.

THE AUTHOR’S PROPOSAL.

Medicare Part E (Everyone). Medicare would be expanded to everyone in the US. No private market alternatives.

Medicare primarily covers seniors, but since Medicare covers SSI participants, it can and does administer benefits for working-age adults, including pregnancy and family planning coverage. Pediatric benefits would be relatively simple to incorporate into Medicare E. And Medicare E would also contain a drug benefit where the Medicare program would negotiate prices with the pharmaceutical manufacturers. It is that simple.

Insurance companies would not all go out of business, however. The Medicare program would continue to contract with them for claims, case management, and benefit administration services. At cutthroat prices. Halliburton and Bechtel need not apply.

Medicaid, a grossly complex mess of state systems, each with its own labyrinthine rules, would end. The Medicaid Long Term care programs would be pulled into Medicare Part E with roughly the same coverage and impoverishment requirements.

Politically impossible, but administratively simple. Universal care. Cradle to grave.

And the cost of healthcare would decrease as the administrative costs (insurance companies, brokers, agents, other assorted parasites) are eliminated. And with the government exercising monopsony power over healthcare providers, prices would fall. Providers would have no other choice. Get more efficient, or get out of the business. That is the lesson of capitalism providers never had to learn. Under Medicare Part E, they will have to learn fast.

MOST EVERY LESSON IS A HARD ONE IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

Back in a Place like Grover’s Corners...

2009-03-08T13:10:00.000-07:00

According to Frank Rich in his New York Times Sunday’s Op-Ed piece entitled ”Some Things Don’t Change in Grover’ Corners”, there has been a spike in the number of recent productions of Thornton Wilder’s classic play, “Our Town”.

Rich writes:

You can see why there’s a spike in the “Our Town” market. Once again its astringent distillation of life and death in the fictional early-20th-century town of Grover’s Corners, N.H., is desperately needed to help strip away “layers and layers of nonsense” so Americans can remember who we are — and how lost we got in the boom before our bust.

PAROCHIALISM PATRONIZED OR COMMONALITY RE-BRANDED.

The Author grew up in a place interchangeable with Grover’s Corners. A small town in a ubiquitous out-of-the way corner of America. A well-stocked graveyard where only the dates and the first names changed. A park named after a Revolutionary War veteran. Flags and nativism. Shuffling old men and jostling kids sharing the same small Main Street. And churches full of some kind of faithful notions.

Rich continues:

…the Stage Manager comes upon the graves of Civil War veterans in the town cemetery. “New Hampshire boys,” he says, “had a notion that the Union ought to be kept together, though they’d never seen more than 50 miles of it themselves. All they knew was the name, friends — the United States of America. The United States of America. And they went and died about it.”

Wilder was not a nostalgic, sentimental or jingoistic writer. Grover’s Corners isn’t populated by saints but by regular people, some frivolous and some ignorant and at least one suicidal. But when the narrator evokes a common national good and purpose — unfurling our country’s full name in the rhetorical manner also favored by our current president — you feel the graveyard’s chill wind. It’s a trace memory of an American faith we soiled and buried with all our own nonsense in the first decade of our new century.

STAGE MANAGERS NOT YET VARNISHED WITH THE “LAYERS AND LAYERS OF NONSENSE.

As kids we saw the nonsense, understood some of it, and felt free from all of it. And hoped that whatever future lay before us, Grover’s Corners was behind us.

“Our Town” took place in the first decade of the 20th Century. We are now a hundred years away from those folks. Shellacked with even more layers of nonsense.

A hundred years away from Grover’s Corners, the country faces another depression. The second time in less than one hundred years. As kids in Grover’s Corner we listened to our grandparents spin tales of hard times. Bank failures. Collapse in confidence.

Kids don’t listen. But they do have confidence. And what faith they have is faith in growing up smarter and avoiding a fate worse than death, the fate of their town.

WHEN DID THEIR TOWN BECOME OUR TOWN?

“Our Town” debuted in the hard times of 1938. Nine years after the Stock Market Crash of 1929.

In the 71 years since, Wilder’s drama has become a permanent yet often dormant fixture in our culture, like the breakfront that’s been in the dining room so long you stopped noticing its contents. Requiring no scenery and many players, “Our Town” is the perennial go-to “High School Play.” But according to A. Tappan Wilder, the playwright’s nephew and literary executor, professional productions have doubled since 2005, including two separate hit revivals newly opened in Chicago and New York.

Just as “Our Town” has become a cultural fixture, the “Their Town” has perhaps inexorably, become the Author’s Town.

But with Wilder’s Grover’s Corners “Our Town” came a faith, a faith in commonality of purpose. An iconic place that can exist, that hope can create when the present has been debased and prostituted.

But even if the play has become a cultural fixture, can the national faith of “Our Town” be revised, re-branded, or at least revisited?

The Author, and his childhood friends, long ago picked “Their Town”. Their cloth was cut early, their chains girded later. Their faith long subsumed by a reality of mean psychic subsistence.

CAN OUR TOWN RETURN?

Some face this national economic challenge with hope and resolve. Some with despair and resignation. Some, like the Author and his friends from Grover’s Corners, left their faith on Main Street and the school yard. But not their intellect and that small place that remains unlayered in nonsense.

Is the country in a place where whatever faith may be gleaned from “Our Town”, or whatever was missed by a reading of “Their Town”, be made common again? Or is the best we can do a nostalgic re-release of a 71-year old play that first showed when hardship reigned and recovery had yet to dawn.

THE AUTHOR HAS PLAYED THE ROLE OF THE STAGE MANAGER IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

MOTORCYCLE RIDING KEEPS RIDERS YOUNG

2009-03-05T09:29:00.000-08:00

An article from the Singapore Straits Times on March 4th lays out the results of a study which finds that motorcyling keeps the brains of middle-aged men young.

The article, set forth below, should be good news for men wishing to convince their spouses that a motorcycle should be in their future. Per the article, morotcyle riding demands a high level of awareness and that this awareness is invigorating for the brain.

From the Author's perspective, riding a sportbike demands a very high level of awareness. The Author's Ducati is a difficult bike to ride and its perfromance attributes demand a high level of road awareness. A moment's lapse can be highly detrimental to the riding experience.

In one sense, it did not take a scientific study to convince the Author that riding a motorcycle keeps one young. But science is the lingua franca in the Desert of the Real and we prefer to let the data do the talking.

HERE COMES THE SCIENCE...

TOKYO - RIDING motorcycles helps keep drivers young by invigorating their brains, the scientist behind popular 'Brain Training' computer software said on Wednesday, citing a new scientific study.

'The driver's brain gets activated by riding motorbikes' in part because it requires heightened alertness, Mr Ryuta Kawashima said after his research team and Yamaha Motor conducted a string of experiments involving middle-aged men.

'In a convenient and easy environment, the human mind and body get used to setting the hurdle low,' he warned. 'Our final conclusion is that riding motorcycles can lead to smart ageing.'

Mr Kawashima is the designer of 'Brain Training' software, which incorporates quizzes and other games and is available on the Nintendo DS game console under the name 'Brain Age' in North America.

A self-professed motorcycle fan, 49-year-old Mr Kawashima cited a new study conducted jointly by Yamaha and Tohoku University, for which he works.

One experiment involved 22 men, all in their 40s and 50s, who held motorcycle licences but had not taken a ride for at least a decade.

They were randomly split into two groups - one asked to resume riding motorcycles in everyday life for two months, and another that kept using bicycles or cars.

'The group that rode motorbikes posted higher marks in cognitive function tests,' Mr Kawashima said.

In one test, which required the men to remember a set of numbers in reverse order, the riders' scores jumped by more than 50 per cent in two months, while the non-riders' marks deteriorated slightly, he said.

The riders also said they made fewer mistakes at work and felt happier.

'Mental care is a very big issue in modern society,' said Mr Kawashima. 'I think we made an interesting stir here as data showed you can improve your mental condition simply by using motorbikes to commute.' -- AFP

RIDE SMART, RIDE SAFE, IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

Hoosier Hysteria? Redux and Reminisce...

2009-03-04T09:36:00.000-08:00

Indiana high school basketball used to be big. Small towns were consumed with it in the 1950s and 1960s. Indiana high school basketball was memorialized in the film "Hoosiers". So what happened?

Lots of things. School consolidation. An expansion of other boys and girls high school sports. Every alternative form of entertainment in the last 50 years. Class tournaments.

But regardless of what happened, boys high school basketball does not occupy the central role it once held in small-town Indiana.

SHOWING HIS VINTAGE AND HIS HERITAGE

The Author was a kid in the waning days of Hoosier Hysteria. He went to lots of West Noble High School basketball games and watched the newly-consolidated West Noble Chargers lose two close final games in the sectionals. And as a college student, he covered high school sports for a small-town paper. So he watched the game change as the times changed.

TIMES CHANGE. BUT MEMORIES DON'T.

Below is a repost of an article in the Kendallville News Sun from February 28th, 2009. But it is more literally from the last week of February, 1966.

43 years later, sectional fever has cooled

Staff Reports

Saturday, 28 February 2009 00:00

It was sectional fever time. Now there’s a term not used much anymore.

Forty-three years ago, 10 area high school boys varsity basketball teams gathered in the South Side Gym for the 1966 Kendallville sectional Feb. 23-26, the first rung of that year’s single-class Indiana High School Athletic Association boys state basketball tournament.

The last sectional before school district consolidation featured the only undefeated team in the state, the Garrett Railroaders, and the 20-1 Wolf Lake Wolves, riding a 15-game winning streak.

The field also included the Kendallville Comets, 9-11; Avilla Panthers, 12-8; Ligonier Red Raiders, 7-12; Auburn Red Devils, 5-15; Cromwell Spartans, 4-15; Churubusco Eagles, 9-10, Albion-Jefferson Trojans, 9-12; and Wawaka Warriors, 0-19.

Sectional fever was everywhere leading up to the tournament. Pep sessions fired up the students. Pep club members and cheerleaders decorated school hallways and classrooms with banners and posters. Fan buses were arranged for the trip to Kendallville.

School colors were popular, and with consolidation looming, that sectional was the last occasion those colors would be worn or waved with pride at a basketball game for many schools.

Cheerleaders painted windows and hung banners in the small towns’ business districts. Retailers offered special “sectional time” deals on everything from cars to appliances to groceries. The V&A Restaurant in downtown Kendallville had a six-piece fried chicken basket special for $2 and a 12-piece basket for $3.25.

The Youth Center in Kendallville held its annual basketball open house for school basketball fans on Saturday from 3 to 7:30 p.m. with pingpong, pool and teen lounge for listening to records and watching TV. A local rock ‘n’ band, “The Chargers,” performed at the dance after the championship game.

Restaurant-goers and bar patrons gathered at their favorite places to talk basketball, specifically the Garrett Railroaders and if any team could beat them. Because Garrett was the only undefeated team in the state, area and state media focused on the Kendallville sectional.

Garrett had 7-foot Chuck Bavis, one of the best players in the state and averaging 30 points and 15 rebounds a game. He attracted national media attention.

The $3 tickets for the five-session sectional in the 4,070-seat gym were all sold before the tourney started.

I remember the excitement for me. As a member of coach Dave Bowers’ Kendallville Junior High School eighth-grade basketball team, I received a free sectional pass along with my teammates. Athletic director John Reed assigned us the responsibility of helping the janitors clean up the gym after the games.

The draw pitted Wolf Lake against Avilla in Wednesday night’s opening game in the six-team lower bracket, followed by Ligonier and Auburn. Thursday night’s opener had Garrett vs. Cromwell in the four-team upper bracket followed by Wawaka and Albion. Friday night’s games pitted the winner between Wolf Lake and Avilla vs. the winner between Ligonier and Auburn, followed by Kendallville vs. Churubusco.

The semifinals were held Saturday at 12:30 and 1:45 p.m., and the championship game was scheduled for 8:15 p.m. Saturday night. That meant two games in one day for two teams, unheard of today.

Coach Burton Wygant’s Wolf Lake Wolves included Lonnie Ladig, Russell Wysong, Dan Perry, Allen Pulley, Bill Hively, Nick Keister, Martin Gaff, Jerry Ott, Doug Taggart, Dan Mitchell and Ed Dunlap.

Coach George Olson’s Avilla Panthers featured Jim Wedding, Fred Myers, Gary Beltz, Jim Frisch, Dave Petrie, Steve Helmer, Charles Wolf, Ron Bruce, Jim Petrie and Phil Luttman.

Ligonier coach Hal Prickett fielded a team consisting of Quentin Saggars, Gary Badorek, Gary Tope, Rolly Badorek, Lyle Becker, Dave Blanchard, Dennis Berkey, Max Golden, Randy Holden, Terry Johnson, Dick Stahly and Greg Warner.

The Auburn Red Devils’ players were Jesse Knowles, Dave Rodebaugh, Tim Grogg, Chuck Smith, Bill Davidson, Tim Alberts, Steve Carr, Gary Grogg, Dan Kruse, Dave Mitchell, Bernard Muzzillo and Frank Pulver.

The Wednesday night games were “barn-burners.” Wolf Lake nipped Avilla 74-73 on a last second tip-in by Wolf Lake’s 6-3 center Nick Keister. Ligonier overcame a nine-point deficit in the final 3 1/2 minutes with reserve Max Golden scoring on a 10-foot jumper with three seconds left to take the game into overtime. Ligonier defeated Auburn in overtime, 57-51.

In addition to Bavis, coach Ward Smith’s Garrett Railroaders featured Dave Clark, Ron Cutler, Craig Gilliland, Mike Heitz, Rick Lewis, Dave Miller, Tony Miller, Ed Myers, Steve Smith, Dave Steward and Jon Vogel.

Coach Tom King’s Cromwell team had Norris Stump, Al Palmer, Dave Barhydt, Rick Vanhorn, Mike Rathke, Mynhier, Jerry Poyser, Mike Loveless, Butch Leamon and Dave Trout.

The Churubusco Eagles, coached by Jake Delegrange included Mike Adams, Rick Bailey, John Bonar, Errol Creech, Roger Crooks, Rex Fletcher, Delynn Geiger, Tom Lang, Roger Schinbeckler, Larry Shively, Randy Stayer and Mike Zeigler.

Coach Gene Racht’s Kendallville team had Randy Ackerman, Mike Brand, Dave Desper, Rex Emerick, Greg Ernsberger, Randy Green, Jon Hossinger, Dave Neal, Dan Radcliffe, Larry Schemerhorn and Mike Wilondek.

Garrett had no problem rolling over Cromwell, 89-36, on Thursday night, followed by Albion’s 66-43 victory over Wawaka.

Wolf Lake disposed of Ligonier on Friday night, 83-67, and Kendallville fell to Churubusco, 72-71.

In Saturday’s semifinals, Garrett overcame Albion’s stall tactics, winning 44-23, and Wolf Lake defeated Churubusco, 65-60.

Garrett easily won its third Kendallville sectional championship in a row by beating Wolf Lake, 83-50, with Bavis scoring 29. Garrett advanced to the Fort Wayne regional at the Memorial Coliseum.

That was the first year two Fort Wayne sectionals were played at the Memorial Coliseum. Garrett beat Fort Wayne sectional I winner North Side, 62-61, and Fort Wayne sectional II winner South Side defeated Angola sectional winner Eastside, 53-35. South Side, led by Willie Long and Chuck Nelson, beat Garrett 45-40 to win the regional.

What happened to one of the most exciting times in high school?

Area boys basketball sectionals begin next week around the state in four classes around the state. >

HAPPY TO BE IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL TODAY!

No Twitter for Hitler

2009-03-01T08:01:00.000-08:00

An online friend of the Author's put him onto this piece of genius.

WARNING: There is some profanity in the video. And it is full of Nazis.

ON SOME DAYS WE DO NOT FEEL WORTHY IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

The Banality of, Well, Banality.

2009-02-28T13:21:00.000-08:00

The philosopher and political theorist Hanna Arendt developed the meme “the banality of evil” in reference to Nazi Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann was a senior Nazi official on trial in Israel. Arendt covered the trial of Eichmann.

Arendt was taken by the banality of Eichmann, a bureaucrat in the Nazi holocaust. The term was drawn from the fact that so many ordinary people could uncritically participate in genocide by taking the small but critical steps to murder millions.

A King or a Cog?

The Louisiana populist politician Huey Long rallied voters with the slogan “Every Man a King”. Seems a little grandiose, but it rallied many thousands in the Great Depression. And it begs the question, how does one occupy both roles, cog on the playing field, king sitting by the water bucket on the bench.

How much of what we do passes for anything. Our ancestors’ anonymous struggle with hunger and death has become, at least in the prosperous ghettoes of Western culture, an incessant toil for a lidless garage and inert filler.

What can emerge from these fungible klatches of creature comfort? A higher order or a larger landfill?

From Chattering Classes the Twittering Masses?

One Question. Who the heck cares what you are doing? Millions, one would surmise. Perhaps, but still, who really cares. Perhaps the Author has descended in to misanthropy, but how much bandwidth can be wasted on so much dullardry? Or might one as well ask how many electrons tunneled out (seeking to breathe free) during the broadcast of High School Reunion last night on TVLand?

Twitter, Facebook and other social sites probably have their place, just as shots of Paris Hilton gone commando. After all, a couple of lies told to Barack Obama have elevated Joe the Plumber to the heights of right-wing punditry.

Well, the Brady Bunch reruns are coming on, and the Author is emulating Bobby Jindal and naming himself ater a character. Sam the Meatman, perhaps?

Celebrity and banality are separated by only a few million hits on the link.

THE DESERT OF THE REAL IS A CELEBERITY-FREE ZONE!

Rock Pioneer Charles Wayne Avery, AKA Chuck Bennett, Dies at 66

2009-02-20T07:08:00.000-08:00

Most Readers have never heard of Charles Wayne Avery. He is my friend's father and he recently died at the age of 66 in Washington, DC.

Avery played with Link Wray and the Raymen, rock pioneers in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. Link Wray is considered the "Father of the Power Chord", or the fifth. It is the signature chord of rock and roll music. And easy to play.

Back in 2005 the Author posted a tribute to Link Wray when Wray died in Europe.

Below is the text from Avery's obituary in the Washington Post.
D.C. Rocker Faded Out of Music Scene

By Joe Holley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 19, 2009; B07

Charles Wayne Avery once said an early career in rock music broke his heart "like a woman." He became a cabbie and ended up using his old bass amp as a coffee table.

The onetime bassist died Jan. 29 at Inova Fairfax Hospital of emphysema and complications of cancer. He was 66.

As Chuck Bennett, his stage name, Mr. Avery had been a singer and bass player with Link Wray and the Raymen, a hard-rocking Washington band of the 1950s and 1960s known for the menacing sound it produced on "Rumble" and "Jack the Ripper," songs that influenced hard rock, grunge and punk.

"Chuck had an unbelievable voice and an unbelievable amount of energy, kind of like James Brown," musician Elwood Brown recalled. "He'd glide across the floor, down on his knees; he had great moves."

Brown, a retired bass player with Link Wray's group, recalled that when Mr. Avery was one of the Raymen in the 1960s, there were two Chuck Bennetts.

One was known as "Tall Chuck," since he was 6 feet 5 inches tall; the other was "Dirty Chuck," for his long, scraggly hair and generally disheveled appearance. Mr. Avery was "Dirty Chuck."

In the 1960s, Wray and the Raymen were regulars at two notorious biker hangouts in the District, the 1023 Club and Vinnie's. They also played the Famous, the Rendezvous, the Silver Dollar, the Crazy Horse and dozens of other venues throughout the Washington area.

"He just hammered out a living in the roughest, wildest clubs in Washington, D.C." said Mark Opsasnick, a historian of the city's music scene.

Mr. Avery also played with the Warlox and with Willie and the Hand Jive and was the lead singer for an Oxon Hill-based psychedelic band called Hillow Hammet. In the early 1980s, he toured the country as part of the band backing The Clovers.

Although he had a regional hit single in the early 1960s called "Seven Days Are Made for Love," he faded from the music scene. He sang occasionally for his friends at the Fraternal Order of Eagles meeting house in Alexandria.

Mr. Avery was born in the District, into what a daughter, Stephanye Avery of Albuquerque, described as "the ultimate dysfunctional family." He never knew his father, she said, and his mother had no time for her talented but troublesome son. She had him committed to St. Elizabeths Hospital, where he stayed for a few years as an adolescent.

After his release, he never went back to school. Music became his life.

"All his life, he had to have a nice stereo," his daughter said. "He had thousands of records and would spend days just sitting and listening to them."

For a few years, he drove a cab during the day and performed at night, but gradually he began driving full time. His emphysema forced him into retirement in 2004, and he spent the last five years of his life as a resident of the Inova Commonwealth Care Center in Fairfax. He passed the time watching movies on TV.

His marriages to Marilyn Lee and Joan Hopkins Avery ended in divorce.

Besides his daughter Stephanye, who is from his second marriage, survivors include a son from his first marriage, Michael Avery of Virginia Beach; a daughter from another relationship, Brenda Cline of Sacramento; three grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Brown, the retired bass player, said Mr. Avery and country singer Patsy Cline "were probably the two biggest eaters on the planet. We'd be out on the road, and he'd order eight or nine eggs, four or five orders of bacon. It was unbelievable."

Brown also recalled that Mr. Avery favored banana-and-mustard sandwiches. "Guys like that you don't forget," he said.

ARTISTS, MUSICIANS AND WRITERS ARE HONORED CITIZENS IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

THE 16TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES-ABRAHAM LINCOLN

2009-02-08T09:42:00.000-08:00

Charles Darwin

2009-02-08T07:18:00.000-08:00

February 12th 1809-February 12th 2009

2009-02-05T08:07:00.000-08:00

February 12th is the bicentenntial of one of the most important days in the history of the world. February 12th, 1809, is the birthday of Charles Darwin, the recognized founder of the fact of evolution, and Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator.

The Desert of the Real has noted Darwin Day in past years. It is an international celebration of Darwin's contribution to science and the modern world view that places humans in their place and creation myths in the dustbin of history.

A RARE DAY OF CELEBRATION IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

CENTER FOR MENNONITE WRITING

2009-01-23T14:49:00.000-08:00

As most readers know, the Author graduated from Goshen College, a Mennonite insitution in Indiana.

The Center for Mennonite Writing (CMW), an online project undertaken by the Goshen College English Department, recently debuted.

One of the author's former professors has a short story posted on the Center. The story, written by Bob Johnson, is entitled "The East Window".

The story is rich with characterization, tension, insight into rural life, and Mennonite "eccentricities" (dare say the Author).

Below is the introduction to the story from the CMW:

The short story, "The East Window," by Bob Johnson depicts a dysfunctional Mennonite-Amish family and raises some intriguing theological possibilities. Is the story more "about" Rodney's experience in the barn? Or about his uncle who observes the disaster? Some of the cultural context is implied by the spellings of ...

Enjoy.

WE PLUG OUR FRIENDS IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL. BUT THEY NEVER PLUG BACK!

CUNNINGLY CLEVER OR IRREDUCIBLY IRRESPONSIBLE?

2009-01-17T00:08:00.000-08:00

When the Author was in High School he wanted a Corvette. This discussion ensued with Hal Prickett, one of the Author's favorite teachers:

Hal said that at my age (with a smirk) that it would be irresponsible to own such a car.

I replied that is it not irresponsible then for an older guy to have a Corvette. He said that for an older guy it was a sign of success.

I then asked him what was the difference between irresponsibility and success? He coyly declined to answer. But I know that we understood each other

THE AUTHOR'S NEW GIRLFRIEND

Her name is Elise and she is built by Lotus for performance.

When the Author sells the house, he can dedicate some of the proceeds to Elise.

WHY BOTHER WITH THE NECCESSITIES WHEN YOU CAN GET BY WITH THE LUXURIES.

The Author is at a troubling and somewhat embittering juncture in his life. He worked extremely hard to obtain a moderate level of professional and financial success. But his success has been transitory and is now ever-elusive.

He can pinpoint the reasons, but they are not worth recounting. Suffice it to say that he will likely never get the corner office. Shoot, he is lucky to even get an office anymore. But the width of the integers on the paychek is all that really ever mattered.

SO WHAT THEN IS TO BE DONE?

Perhaps the best revenge against those that hold the jobs he should have had and pull down the salaries that he should have earned is to live the life that HE WANTS! Listen to punk rock. Go to art films. Break into a Beavis and Butt-Head voice when the fancy strikes. (While still being fluent amd voluble in economics, history, science and politics.)

Play some raw chords on a loud guitar. Ride a fast motorcycle in a hard and extreme fashion. And keep coming at it, again and again. And maybe someday, pull up beside the ship that he had long missed.

AND DRIVE A SPORTS CAR WITH AN ABANDON THAT FEW WILL EVER KNOW OR APPRECIATE!

WELCOME TO THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

INVESTMENT ADVICE FOR 2009. AND MAYBE SOME FREE LUNCH.

2009-01-04T14:01:00.000-08:00

The Author has not dispensed much investment advice recently. With the market turmoil he cannot recommend his day trading strategy to others for numerous reasons. Much of the Author’s methodology involved shorting the market in 2009 with inverse index ETFs such as QID. QID is a doubly-inverse fund

But funds can use leverage the other way. You can buy ETFs that are doubly- correlated to its underlying index. So for a fund like SSO, if the S&P 500 goes up 2.5%, SSO will go up 5%.

Unfortunately, it works the other way, but that is the way that life with the wolves works.

MARKET SHOWS SHORT TERM STRENGTH.

The market indicators that the Author follows are all positive and the Author further believes that the market has short-to-medium term strength. So if you still hold stocks or stock mutual funds, hold on. If you are out of the market and on the sidelines, now might be a good time to dip a toe back in.

Many investors are index fund investors. They own funds that track indices such as the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ index. These funds have low transactional costs and are a well-recognized buy-and-hold tool.

ARE YOU A BUY AND HOLD INVESTOR WITH INDEX FUNDS?

If you are, keep reading. The Author will show you how to improve your earnings without substantially raising your risk. A little free lunch, perhaps?

Here is how:

1. Instead of holding index funds for the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ (and perhaps the DJIA), buy double index ETFS. Here is an example:

You have a $100,000 portfolio. $50,000 is in an S&P 500 index fund and $50,000 is in a NASDAQ index fund. Not an uncommon portfolio model.

But if you buy doubly-correlated ETF index funds such as SSO (S&P 500) and QLD (NASDAQ), you will only spend a total of $50,000 to buy substantially the same equity exposure. You put $25,000 into SSO and $25,000 into QLD.

2. You now have $50,000 left. You could speculate with this money, buying stocks or other investments that you believe will outperform the market. But likely you will not since you already pursue a conservative index fund investment strategy. Instead, you take the remaining $50,000 and place it into a money market fund. Here is what will happen.

3. You will get the close to the market returns, whatever they are, for the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ. So if the S&P goes up 5% and the NASDAQ goes up 6%, your $50,000 will earn:

a. $5,000 for the S&P ETF SSO.
b. $6,000 for the NASDAQ ETF QLD.
c. $1,250 for the Money Market.

Basically, the $1,250 is free lunch, or money that would have been left on the table had you owned $100,000 of straight index funds. You get an extra 1.25% return.

SO WHAT IS THE DOWNSIDE?

There is a risk to this strategy. The risk is that the doubly-correlated fund will not exactly track the underlying index. How great that risk of deviation is the subject of another post, or reader comments. But to the Author's experience, it has been minimal.

DON’T SAY THAT THE DESERT OF THE REAL NEVER GAVE YOU NUTHIN’!

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: This blog is offered for informational purposes only. Sources of information provided are believed to be reliable, but are not guaranteed to be complete or without error. Opinions and suggestions are provided with the understanding that readers acting on information contained herein assume all risks involved. The author may or may not buy or sell securities discussed in this newsletter.

IN MMM LAND, THE BEST ECONOMISTS LACK ALL CONVICTION, AND THE TALK-SHOW ECONOMISTS ARE FULL OF PASSIONATE INTENSITY.

2009-01-03T08:11:00.000-08:00

Harry Truman reportedly described the difficulty of getting a straight answer from an economics with this joke.

Truman said "I would like to have a one-armed economist."

"Why" asks some nameless stooge.

"Because they always answer a question with 'on the one-hand, it is this. But on the other hand, it could be that."

WHERE ARE THE ECONOMISTS ON THE TALK SHOWS?

The following is a post on the sire Eschaton on January 3rd, 2009.

Economists Behaving Badly [AUTHOR'S NOTE: Or just not playing nice.]

It is a puzzling thing about my former profession that after spending many years in graduate school and beyond, economists are happy to let the public face of the profession be the first 50 pages of an Econ 101 textbook. It isn't some crazy area of the profession where various forms of market failure are discussed. You can even get it in the 2nd 50 pages of a typical Econ 101 textbook!

Heckuva job!

“Most academics are really reluctant to take part in the public dialog, because the public dialog requires you to have an opinion about things you can’t really be sure about,” says Mr. Rajan. “They fear talking about things where everything is not neatly nailed in a model. They stay away and let the charlatans occupy the high ground.”

I think this is too nice. Economists do offer opinions about things you can't really be sure about, they just don't usually offer ones which deviate from an Econ 101 framework. Those things aren't "known," they're just easy.

To most people, academic economics is indistinguishable for Larry Kudlow.

SAD BUT TRUE.

Economics maybe dismal science, but it is deadly serious in the Desert of the Real!

ADVICE FOR THE LOVEWORN AND THE MONEYSHORN…

2009-01-02T07:58:00.000-08:00

The Author rarely gives advice in The Desert of the Real. No money in it, and it is often wrong. But with the economy in a powerdive, it might be time to share some thoughts.

The Author’s personal economy has been in crash mode for the last five years since he moved to New Mexico, the Land of Disenrichment. Except for nine-months in Indiana working on a lucractive project for an upstanding organization, he has made far less here than elsewhere. And the decline of income has aligned with a conomiitant loss of wealth. The Author has lost more money than many people will ever see. But that is past.

The Author ain’t broke, but he ain’t gettin’ up to dance.

In effect, the Author suffered a pre-recession depression and he has kept his head above water and has made progress.

HERE’S SOME ADVICE FROM A FORMERLY SUCCESSFUL MOFO THAT CAN STILL PAY THE BILLS.

A. Do Not Automatically Rely on What has Worked in the Past. What Worked in the Past Is Probably no Longer Working. Rely on What you Did to Make it Work.
That is a mouthful. But look at what you did to make a former job, a former business, a former deal, successful. Was it relentless work? Was it superior marketing? Was it special skills that you possessed that made the venture successful?

Suss out the underlying basis of success. If you made a fortune in the VHS tape market, you must change the game. But pull out what made things work for you. Lots of other MOFOs sold VHS tapes. What made you better at it?

B. Peel Away the Needs from the Wants. Pull in the lines. Throw out the sea anchor. Ben Franklin was probably right that “A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned.” Ironically, this advice is bad for the economy as a whole. In recessionary and depressionary times the economy needs all of the economic spending it can get. But don’t worry, there are plenty of other SOBs that will spend what they don’t have.

C. If You Need Help, Get It. If these economic times have triggered depression or substance abuse issues, get help for it. There is no shame in doing so. And these conditions will exacerbate your efforts to navigate these dour days.

D. Adopt a Dog, Volunteer to Help Others. Pets are a great stabilizer. And pets suffer disproportionately in bad economic times.

And volunteer at the homeless shelter. Visit people in nursing homes. Get out of yourself and give to others.

HOPES THIS HELPS.

SOMETIMES WE HAVE TO KICK IT “OLD SCHOOL” IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

HAPPY 1OTH BIRTHDAY, EURO!

2008-12-31T06:52:00.000-08:00

FROM YOUR POCKET TO THEIRS:

On this date ten years ago certain member states of the European Union dissolved their currencies and adopted the common currency, the Euro, on January 1st, 1999.

Once, and still occasionally, derided as a sham currency of socialists states chained to economic collapse, the Euro is now worth more than the US Dollar. The Euro is currently worth $1.39 Bush Skins.

A story is below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Exchange_Rate_Mechanism

TITANIUM IS THE MOST VALUABLE METAL, AND PAWN TICKETS THE COMMON CURRENCY IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

2008 TO CLOSE. 2001 A WORLD AWAY

2008-12-31T04:21:00.000-08:00

AUTHOR'S NOTE: THIS IS A REPOST FROM THE DESERT OF THE REAL ECONOMICS, ORIGINALLY POSTED ON DECEMBER 27, 2007.

This is the time of the year when commentators and media outlets release their obligatory “Year in Review” articles.. Let’s do a century instead.

Years, decades, centuries, are rarely coterminous with the events that mark them. The Gay 90’s didn’t begin in 1890 and end in 1900. The Roaring Twenties quit roaring before 1930 when the stock market crashed in 1929. And the 1960s? Judging by all of the retired hippies in Santa Fe and Sedona, the 1960s may not end until the last hippies ride their Harley-Davidson wheelchairs into the sunset.

Many historians say that the 19th century “ended” in 1918 when World War I concluded. This is based upon the fact that World War I was the final clash of the empires that dominated the 19th century. Two empires, the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, were destroyed. Another empire, the Russian Empire, was defeated and transformed into the Communist Soviet Union (an empire that would take center stage in the 20th century).

The British Empire was staggered and weakened. It struggled through the rest of the 20th century but would never return to the “glory” it held in the 19th century.

The United States came to prominence after World War I and emerged as the dominant economic and industrial power.

So in effect, one world order from the 19th century was replaced by another in the wake of World War I.

SO WHEN DID THE 20TH CENTURY END?

The Author believes that the 20th Century ended in 1989 with the bloodless collapse of the Soviet Union and the East-Bloc Communist states. Before World War II, American and European financial and industrial interests operated in mortal fear of communism and socialism taking root in their economies. The world-wide Depression helped the Nazis come to power in war-and-reparations ravaged Germany. American leaders feared that the economic dislocation of the Great Depression would trigger socialist uprisings. Others feared that the disruption of the Great Depression would trigger a right-wing fascist coup in the US.

WORLD WAR II RESHUFFLED THE DECK.

Only the United States and the Soviet Union were left standing after World War II. Post-war hopes for world stability were dimmed by the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe. Then came 40-some years of the “Cold War”, which turned “warm” in Korea and Vietnam, and flashed “Red” over Soviet missiles in Cuba. And looming always was the threat of thermo-nuclear annihilation.

The fall of communism, organic, nearly bloodless, was a welcome event in human history. In the end, governments that lacked popular support fell through populist actions. With a whimper, not a bang.

SO, WHAT TO MAKE OF THE NEW 21ST CENTURY?

By the Author’s reckoning, we are almost 20 years into the 21st century (1989-today). A lot has happened. A terrorist strike on the Twin Towers in New York City has unleashed an expansionist, Christianist and authoritarian regime in Washington. These fetid impulses, never far from the surface of the body politic, have finally oozed out of their secretive mire.

We can see them for what they are-- petty tyrants (as are all tyrants) with the military and police power to act on their whims, greed, ambition, paranoia and insecurities. We can hear them derided and decried from the capitals of the world as bullies and thugs. But can we stop them?

2008 UPDATE: The Nation faces an economic shock as bad as anything since the Great Depression. Tools and leadership are in place to avoid the worst of it, but, nevertheless, it is here. We will check back in a year.

The Vikings have made the playoffs and Ducati keeps winning races. But most of the Ramones are dead and my best friend lost his business. And that most apostate of prayer still blows through the howling heart of evil.

WE THINK FREE, THEREFORE WE LIVE FREE, IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

Ann Savage, B-Movie Femme Fatale, Passes Away at 87

2008-12-30T08:47:00.000-08:00

Listen Mister, I been around, and I know a wrong guy when I see one.

She could be talking about the Author, but this was actress Ann Savage in the Film Noir classic "Detour".

Ann savage passed away on Christmas Day this year. She appeared in numerous B-Movies and had the talent to hit the A-list. But, as Al Roberts, her co-starring character in "Detour", said:

Fate, or some mysterious force, can put the finger on you or me for no good reason at all

Ann Savage recently appeared in the brilliant cult film "My Winnipeg".

An article about the actress Ann Savage appears on MSNBC.

LET'S CLOSE ANN SAVAGE'S LIFE AND CAREER WITH THIS LINE FROM "DETOUR" THAT THE AUTHOR FANCIES IS DIRECTED TO THE AUTHOR.

You're no gentleman, see?

ANN SAVAGE HAS A ROAD NAMED AFTER HER IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

The Last Day of June 2008. The Last Day of December 2008. A few months off. Only Nanoseconds in Deep Time.

2008-12-26T19:43:00.000-08:00

AUTHORS NOTE: A REPOST OF POST FROM JULY 2008 IN THE THE DESERT OF THE REAL.

The Author had intended to write this post closer to June 30th, but, well, did not. Good thing, because he stumbled upon a few interesting articles that made the delay worth the letdown.

In 1973 singer-songwriter Al Stewart released the album “Past, Present, Future.” The album charted a new direction for Stewart as all of the songs on the album dealt with historical characters and historical events. Much of Stewart’s later work also addresses historical themes.

One of the songs on the album is "The Last Day of June 1934." A pivotal event occurred on and around that day. The event has since become known as the “Night of the Long Knives.”

In a thorough and brutal consolidation of power, Hitler murdered the leaders of the SA (“Brownshirts”) and obtained the tacit approval of these murders and purges from the German Army and the German political leadership.

Stewart’s song focuses on the events, including the murder of SA leader Ernst Rohm, and on the obliviousness of Europe to the event that launched the Nazis on their reign of butchery and terror.

The entire lyrics of the song are here. Some relevant words are set out below:

And a lost wind of summer blows into the streets
Past the tramps in the alleyways, the rich in silk sheets
And Europe lies sleeping,
you feel her heartbeats through the floor
On the last day of June 19...

On the night that Ernst Roehm died voices rang out
In the rolling Bavarian hills
And swept through the cities and danced in the gutters
Grown strong like the joining of wills

I sit here now by the banks of the Rhine
Dipping my feet in the cold stream of time
And I know I'm a dreamer, I know I'm out of line
With the people I see everywhere

The couples pass by me, they're looking so good
Their arms round each other, they head for the woods
They don't care who Ernst Roehm was, no reason they should
Just a shadow that hangs in the air

But I thought I saw him cross over the hill
With a whole ghostly army of men at his heel
And struck in the moment it seemed to be real like before
On the last day of June 1934

Oh to have been prescient on the last day of June 1934.

ON THE LAST DAY OF JUNE 1954.

Harrison Brown was an American geochemist and polymath involved in the isolation of plutonium for the first production of nuclear weapons. And he keenly understood the nature and the limitations of the future of humankind.

A post entitled “Which Future Should We Prepare for, Industrial or Agrarian” on the weblog Resource Insights contains a good discussion of Brown’s insight’s into the future of humankind.

In 1954 Brown published “The Challenge of Man’s Future”. In that book Brown outlined two futures of humans. One was the industrial future, the machine future, the future that we inhabit. The other future is an agrarian future, a far less comfortable future where life will be more troubled and tenuous.

Kurt Cobb of Resource Insights states:

Brown's views may seem strange to the modern ear accustomed as it is to hearing how thoroughly we have subdued nature through technology. But even back in 1954 it was already well-known in scientific circles that 1) we would one day run short of finite fossil fuels, 2) we were working our way from high-grade metal ores down to low-grade ores, and 3) industrial society would ultimately be faced with the task of obtaining its required metals and other basic resources from nothing more than air, rock and seawater. The key to making a successful transition, Brown reasoned, would be finding the necessary energy since if one has enough energy, getting needed materials from the ultra-low-grade resources of air, rock and seawater would be feasible.

GEORGE JETSON AND CHARLES DARWIN KNOW WHAT BROWN IS TALKING ABOUT.

Brown describes the problem this way:

Once a machine civilization has been in operation for some time, the lives of the people within the society become dependent upon the machines. The vast interlocking industrial network provides them with food, vaccines, antibiotics, and hospitals. If such a population should suddenly be deprived of a substantial fraction of its machines and forced to revert to an agrarian society, the resultant havoc would be enormous. Indeed, it is quite possible that a society within which there has been little natural selection based upon disease resistance for several generations, a society in which the people have come to depend increasingly upon surgery for repairs during early life and where there is little natural selection operating among women, relative to the ability to bear children--such a society could easily become extinct in a relatively short time following the disruption of the machine network.

AH, POST-APOCALYPSE AMERICA. THE ULTIMATE FRONTIER. THE ULTIMATE TEST FOR RUGGED INDIVIDUALISTS LIKE PHIL GRAMM AND RICHARD MELLON-SCAIFE.

...Neanderthals wanted. Low pay. Hard work. Apply within...

Brown is basically saying that if the world goes Neanderthal, the world will need Neanderthals. Tiger Woods, Bill Gates, Rush Limbaugh and Arriana Huffington would likely be less successful in the neo-Agrarian world than Amazon hunter-gathers and homeless dudes that can live in boxes and scrounge meals from dumpsters.

Organisms evolve to succeed in the world that they are faced with. Polar bears need ice and seals. Venus Fly-Traps and Pitcher Plants need bogs. Prairies Chickens need prairies.

A hedge fund manager, with no hedge fun to manage and no penthouse to live in, has little ability to survive on the Pampas or the Polar ice shelf. Most or all of her kids would die of exposure or childhood disease.

SO MUCH LAND. SO FEW HORTICULTURISTS. SO LITTLE FOOD.

Modern agriculture has produced remarkably efficient organisms (corn, wheat, soybeans, livestock) that produce bumper harvests at relatively low input costs. That output comes at a perilous price. The organisms are breed for performance, not persistence. They grow fine in a narrow band of parameters. And as hybrids, they cannot even reproduce.

But throw a few exogenous events at these thoroughbreds and they fade and die. Drought, disease, blight, insects and inclement weather wreak havoc on these organisms. They lack the genetic diversity that their ancestors, wild counterparts, and garden varieties possess. Indian corn and heirloom vegetables are a couple of examples. Indian corn was grown for many thousands of years and in its long genetic life developed genes that allowed it to survive many threats. The same with heirloom vegetables. They retain a genetic diversity that makes them better equipped to survive in environments that would shred Pioneer’s finest seed corn.

THE LAST DAY OF JUNE 2034.

Brown’s thesis is not without a way out. The cheap but finite oil and coal that powered the machine age that he lived in must be replaced with something plentiful and cheap. And the raw materials that drove the machine age must be recycled.

Brown’s prescription was nuclear and/or solar power. Nuclear power never lived up to its “Atomic Age” promise due to the problems of waste storage and the potential for toxic release. It still has a place, and the time frame for new plant construction will fit in with the long-term transition to non-hydrocarbon power sources.

Solar power offers a better alternative. But it needs incentives to produce and to direct more capital toward development until it becomes an economically viable alternative source. Solar power WILL become a cheaper alternative to oil, coal and gas. But the question of WHEN is draped in uncertainty. That uncertainty could damn millions, perhaps billions.

Brown calls the switchover the “rate of conversion” problem:

Continuance of vigorous machine culture beyond another century or so is clearly dependent upon the development and utilization of atomic or solar power. If these sources of newly applied energy are to be available in time, the basic research and development must be pursued actively during the coming decades. And even if the knowledge is available soon enough, it is quite possible that the political and economic situation in the world at the time the new transition becomes necessary will be of such a nature that the transition will be effectively hindered. Time and again during the course of human history we have seen advance halted by unfavorable political and economic conditions. We have seen societies in which technical knowledge and resources were both present, but where adequate capital and organization were not in existence and could not be accumulated sufficiently rapidly. [Emphasis Added.]

We will have a better idea how the road to the last day of June 2134 will be traveled on the last day of June 2034. It can be a nice road traversed with efficiently powered vechicles or a dirt path trudged by hungry peasants.

There is one huge difference between the Last Day of June 1934 and the last day of June 2034. On the last day of June 2034 we will have some idea of what the future may hold.

Below is a video of "Roads to Moscow", with haunting video images.

A DAY LIKE ANY OTHER DAY IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HOLIDAY GREETINGS FROM THE DESERT OF THE REAL

2008-12-25T05:22:00.000-08:00

To all of our friends, family, and others who receive the Desert of the Real Posts but are too polite to cancel their no-cost email subscription.

May this Christmas and Holiday Season bring us everthing we want that will fit in a cookie tin or a 5MG file. Or the tiny brains of my mentors, pictured below.

May the Season enrich us with charity and benevolence.

May the Season reunite us with friends, loved ones, and that which is lost to the drain of time.

May the Season bring new, interesting, and accomodating people into our lives.

May the spirit of adventure and the challenge of new opportunity grace our lives.

May we be safe and protected from harm and oppression.

And finally, may the New Year bring us blessings and prosperity.

OR ELSE!

FROM THE DESERT OF THE REAL IN THIS TIME AND PLACE!

NUEVO AMERICA.

2008-12-20T05:29:00.000-08:00

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a repost of piece from 2007. The interest in reposting in it arose when the Author read the racist and nativist rants of some fellow Hoosiers on "The Fence Post" regarding immigration.]

In the 2004 film “The Motorcycle Diaries”, a young Ernesto “Che” Guevara makes a generally accurate observation about Latin America. The youthful pre-Communist Revolutionary says that [paraphrase] from Tierra Del Fuego to the Mexican border with Texas, Latin America is one large Mestizo continent. Mestizo is a Latin American term for mixed European and Native Latin American people.

In many Latin American counties, the majorities of the populations of the countries are of mixed European and Native American ancestry.[i] Hispanics in the United States also reflect a high percentage of Mestizo ancestry, although a few profess solely European ancestry.

Another way of addressing the mestizo populations in Latin America is to state the obvious. Spanish and Portuguese invaders of Central and South America commingled with Native peoples to produce offspring with genetic traits from both populations. European invaders and Native North Americans did not commingle in a similarly large extent. North American European conquerors preferred genocide and Apartheid (“reservations”) as opposed to a more paternalistic “patron” system.

AMERICA WANTED THE MEXICAN LANDS, BUT APPARENTLY NOT THE MEXICANS

America, a nation of immigrants that have no memory of their former immigrant status, is manufacturing another “immigrant crisis”. Nativist, anti-immigration sentiments run deep in both political parties. But it is rhetoric versus reality. Millions of Latin Americans, and other nationalities, have deep roots in the Melange that is Nuevo America.

Many Spanish familes have been in America a long time. Longer than Irish Americans, longer than Italian Americans. A lot of them were living in New Mexico, Arizona and California when America took those lands by military force from Mexico in the War of 1848. And don't forget the Anglo Invaders that incited a successful revolution in Texas against the Mexican government.

MESTIZOS MOVE NORTH

As most of the readers know, the Author lives in New Mexico, Nuevo Mexico. To the east of New Mexico is Texas and to the west lies Arizona. Each state has a large Hispanic population and each has its own political and sociological idiosyncrasies. In Texas, 35% of the population is Hispanic and 49% is Anglo-European. Arizona, one of the fastest growing states in the country, is 26% Hispanic and 63% Anglo-European. New Mexico is 42% Hispanic and 45% Anglo-European. Almost 10% of New Mexican residents are First Nations Americans.

But of course most American cities and states now have large and growing Hispanic populations. Indiana, the Author’s home state, has a 3.5% Hispanic population percentage. Minnesota, the Author’s former resident state, has a 3% Hispanic population. Georgia’s population is about 5% Hispanic. And Hispanics are the largest growing population group in the country.

WHEN WILL THE UNITED STATES BECOME A MESTIZO NATION?

Just like the Author cannot predict future stock market directions, he cannot predict when the United States will be a plurality or a majority Hispanic nation. It is likely it will be, but not in the Author’s lifetime. The process is already underway. Along with other processes. Loss of industrial capacity. Income divergence. Sprawl. Expansion of low-wage service work. Nativism versus economic and cultural inclusion.

And along with becoming an Hispanic nation, the blood of Native Americans, murdered and herded into concentration camps that are called "reservations", will reflow across their once-stolen lands.

Un Nuevo Día en Aumento en el Desierto de la Real!

A PUNK ROCK CHRISTMAS PAST-1981

2008-12-13T18:57:00.000-08:00

"Long Past?"
"No, the Author's Past."

NONETHELESS, IT SEEMS LIKE LONG PAST. AND ONLY WILL BECOME MORE SO. HOPING FOR A SOFT RETREAT IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL.

IN MEMORY OF STAFF SARGEANT WILLIAM FRANKLIN PRESTON AND RICHARD WILLIAM WILSON

2008-12-06T14:48:00.000-08:00

[AUTHORS NOTE: It is traditional that the Author posts the following reprint on December 6th, the day before December 7th, the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

This year seems a bit different than the last few years that the Author has made this post. The nation is falling into an economic decline unlike any other since the Great Depression.

The Author is, and has been, in a thinking and reading mode. He has not posted in near a month. As he stands in his own small depression.]

AND YET ANOTHER YEAR WASHES THROUGH...

Sunday is December 7th. It was 67 years ago that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the event that brought the United States into World War II.

War leaves holes in the fabric of humanity, broken links in the Great Chain of Being. Fathers bury their sons and mothers sing the Death Songs. Yet still, war’s slakeless siren resounds in the ears and stirs in the hearts of tyrants. And the most venal in the land stand in the counting house door and take off their hats as the funeral procession passes.

The post below is from Mrs. Mary Byrd. The Author had some email correspondence with Mrs. Byrd in 2006, but has not heard from here since. The Author hopes she is well.

Counting the Cost
by Mary Lou Brown Byrd

Kentucky's famous Trappist monk Thomas Merton said it best: "Nothing is lost by peace, yet everything may be lost by war."

Keeping count "by the numbers"(army parlance) tells us that more than 2000 of our young warriors have died for their country in this war. But these dead should be more than statistics. It galls me that they are not being given the honor and recognition they deserve. Why not? We do it for presidents -- President Reagan, for instance-- a full week of mourning and Old Glory at half-staff for 30 days. Even now, the flag should be flying at half-mast every day, for we are losing far too many brave men and women.

Yet we see nothing and hear little of our dead being brought home in flag-draped coffins. Is it a deliberate attempt by this administration to promulgate the old saying "out of sight, out of mind?" If it is, it won't work, for there are those of us who still grieve for our loved ones lost many years ago, in other wars:

Words cannot express the desolation of that bleak Kentucky winter of 1944 when the message came -- a telegram regretting to inform my parents that their eldest son had died of wounds received in action. He died near Metz, France with Patton's army. The grandstanding general (who reminds me so much of our present Commander-in-Chief!) had outrun his supply and support lines in his rush to glory. My brother bled to death before medics could reach him.

Later, a special packet arrived: a gilded Purple Heart medal and a letter of condolence from President Roosevelt. My mother could not, would not, accept his death, even when his personal possessions came home in a box. She fondled his wallet, empty except for a few faded photographs of the family. There was his pocket comb with two teeth missing and a worn handkerchief. She hugged to her breast all these personal things he had last touched, some of them still encrusted with the mud from a far away field in France where he had fallen.

Letters came, one from a Catholic chaplain to my Protestant mother advising her that he had been with her son at the end. His company commander wrote that Staff Sgt. William Franklin Preston had been one of his best soldiers, a credit to his family and to the nation.

She put away the treasured medal and letters in a small cedar box, symbolically burying her great loss. But she was inconsolable. Her 21 year old son dead -- and she hadn't seen him since he was 16 -- the day he quit shucking corn in the field and hitchhiked to Lexington to join the army. But what choices did a poor farm boy have during the hard, lean years of the Great Depression? The army had good food, clothing, and $21 a month to offer -- which was a step up from nothing.

The memory of my mother's grieving face that cold Kentucky winter haunts me still. Although my sisters and I had quit our jobs housekeeping for "rich" people in Cincinnati to come home to help strip the tobacco crop, our best efforts in assuaging her grief failed. From the stripping room in the barn we could hear her keening, heartbroken wailing. We looked at each other, stopped stripping the leaves from the tobacco stalks, waiting, knowing it wouldn't be long before she'd be there at the door, swollen-eyed and desperate, seeking a solace none of us could give.

My dad, his own eyes brimming, stopped work to hold her. We stood silent, stricken, there at the stripping bench, our "hands' of tobacco still untied, each of us sharing their hurt, yet lost in our own private grief: Dear Brother, 21 is so young to die! Much too young. You hadn't begun to live.

My mind wanders: Long rows of tobacco stretching endlessly under the hot sun -- a gaggle of ragged children with goose-neck hoes chopping Johnson grass and thistles out of the weedy tobacco rows -- daydreaming, talking about what we would do when we got "rich." What regret, Bill, now that you would never get married, have the daughter you were going to name "Alice"; never get to live in a big, fine house with a bathroom; never get all the graham crackers and peanut butter you could eat. Not that you didn't enjoy our daily fare -- pinto beans, fried potatoes and cornbread, but that fancy food you'd had once at a neighbor's house fired your imagination.

A wistful bunch of kids, leaning on our hoes, wishing and wanting. You wanted books to read -- not the kid stuff in the school library, but about the Graf Zeppelin and the China Clipper, and about G-8 and his Battle Aces. You wanted to play basketball, but you had no athletic shoes to wear, and that's really why you quit high school. The coach ran you off the floor because you couldn't afford a pair of proper shoes. Six-feet two inches at age 16, quick and smart, you would have made a fine basketball player. You traded your old shotgun (you'd painted the barrel blue) for a guitar, and you were getting pretty good on it before you left. You had such a good baritone voice, and sang "Man of Constant Sorrow" and "Little Maggie" as good as Bill Monroe or Ralph Stanley. You were just a boy, the apple of your mother's eye, when you stood in the recruiting office and swore to defend your country against all enemies. Bless your dear heart! You did that, did it well, and died in the process.

I think of my brother, William Franklin Preston, 10th Infantry Division (Camp McCoy, Iceland, Ireland, and D-ay) so often. He would be today 82 years old. Even now, so many years later. I have one consolation that siblings today don't have: He fought in probably the one war that needed fighting -- World War II, a war that resembles Bush's War in Iraq not one whit!

On December 7th, as every December 7th, the Desert of the Real Economics Analysis website will fall silent, in honor of all that died, military, civilian, allied or enemy, in World War II. And in special honor of Mrs. Byrd and her brother, STAFF SGT. WILLIAM FRANKLIN PRESTON.

POST-FILM DISCUSSION

2008-11-24T15:13:00.000-08:00

Erin Fugate and Vicente Luis Mora, of Instituto Cervantes, stand with film director David Reznak at the National Hispanic Cultural Center during a question and answer session, after a screening of his movie "La osa mayor menos dos," Nov. 20, 2008.

Photo by Grace Lorraine.

THE GREAT BEAR MINUS TWO

2008-11-22T07:59:00.000-08:00

AUTHOR'S NOTE: On November 20th, the Author and his friend Grace Lorraine went to a film at the Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque. It was a very powerful documentary about mental health and the reformed Spanish mental health system. And it is a deep look into the lives of the mentally ill, the fascist mental health system of Spain that existed under the fascist dictator Franco, and the evil uses of such a system in that totalitarian state.

And perhaps synchronistically enough, November 20th was the 33rd Anniversary of the death of Generalissimo Franco.

Posted below is Grace's penetrating and elegant review of the film, as posted on Duke City Fix.

The Great Bear Minus Two intimately shows the lives of institutionalized mental health patients in Leganes, Spain. (The film was in Spanish, of course, with English subtitles.)

Reznak graciously answered all the audience's questions, in English, with a lovely lilting accent for the couple who were not "de habla hispana nativo." (Did Babelfish translate "native Spanish speaking" elegantly? I thought I remembered "hablohispantes" as the idiomatic expression.) An inquiry to his motives for making this film elicited a multi-faceted response.

Reznek was inspired by films from the late 60's that looked at mental health care. He also thought the medium of film was most expressive and capable of capturing the complexity of experiences of the people. Furthermore, the stories of these patients is a worthwhile cause; he cares about letting an audience into their world. Sometime ago, there was a very sensationalistic view made of this facility in an effort to de-institutionalize patients.

The preceding works made it difficult for him to gain access. Reznek said his friend paved the way, with the director of the hospital, to allowing him to shoot this movie. But many red tape issues also complicated his filming. Releases from the patients, and sometimes the families of the patients, needed to be secured.

Furthermore, the very large 16mm Arriflex camera, with an enormous zoom lens, intimidates practically anybody. Reznak spent weeks on location with the equipment, running no film, in order for people to get comfortable with its presence. At one point in the 18-month process of filming, he had to take a 12-week break because a patient with schizophrenia developed intense paranoia regarding the work.

In my opinion, the work is disturbing, genuine and touching. During one of their field trips, a female patient beautifully sang "I'm afraid, afraid, afraid to fall in love."

"La osa mayor menos dos" makes me afraid to go insane.

ON ANOTHER VETERAN'S DAY

2008-11-11T06:12:00.000-08:00

AUTHORS NOTE: This is a repost from Last Veteran's Day, 11.11.07

Veterans Day is well noted, but perhaps not well remembered. The American Legion and the VFW hold ceremonies. As a Boy Scout, the Author attended a couple of these as a kid.

And there are the obligatory “Thank the Veterans” editorials and op-ed pieces. For public sector employees, it is often a paid holiday. But, in the Author’s opinion, it slides past the minds and memories of most Americans.

There appears to be at least one reason that Veterans Day passes with less notice than it did 30 years ago. The last two or three generations of Americans have not had to fight in great and massive wars such as the American Civil War and the two World Wars. This is not to minimize the sacrifices or heroism of veterans of these smaller wars. It is just to recognize that since fewer people served in Vietnam, Korea, or the Iraq wars, there are less Americans whose lives are entwined with those veterans.

No, the Author’s generation and the two that came later avoided all out mobilization and the horrendous losses that those wars entailed. Perhaps there will come a day when Veterans Day will be only an historical holiday, with no recent wars to remember.

Many readers know that the Author marks the deaths of local (Noble County, Indiana) soldiers with a short note and the poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by the World War I poet Wilfred Owen. World War I, as most readers know, was the “war to end all wars”. That appellation was a little premature.

VETERANS GAVE US THE “BEST YEARS OF THEIR LIVES”.

But this Veterans Day the Author did something a bit different. He went to the movies. But not just any movie. It was the Oscar-winning film from 1946 “The Best Years of Our Lives.” The film was screened at the Guild Cinema in Albuquerque as part of a Veterans Day Film Series. Peter and Kief,, owners of the Guild, deserve heartfelt thanks for selecting this film for a Veterans Day showing.

“The Best Years of Our Lives” is the story of three veterans returning from World War II and their struggles to adjust. And the struggle of their families and friends to adjust to them.

The film is frank, yet sometimes funny. It is also poignant, and to a remarkable extent for Hollywood in 1946, unflinching. The film introduces three returning veterans. Al is a middle-aged sergeant who has a family and a solid career as a banker. Fred is a captain, a bombardier, and a decorated war hero. But with no experience in anything but bomb dropping, he can only find menial work when he returns. Homer is a sailor who lost his hands in the war. In a sense, Homer is the best-adjusted. The Navy has trained him to use his artificial hands very effectively. But Homer has issues with the way that others relate to him. Especially his fiancé.

The film also follows the lives of the women and family members. And peripheral issues also arise. Post war inflation and shortages of goods. The black market. Economic slowdown. Radical isolationist politics. Infidelity on the homefront. And the specter of a coming nuclear war.

Lots of stuff, and the film runs nearly three hours. But it is among the best of films from the “returning veteran” genre. The American Film Institute ranks it 37th of the best 100 American films. The direction, acting, art direction and cinematography are stellar. It deserves frequent viewing and consideration.

The men and women of the World War II generation are passing into history. Most of the actors from “The Best Years of Our Lives” are dead. The memory of that generation is fading from the collective memory.

Let us never forget.

A RARE SOMBER MOMENT IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

AND TO THE VETERANS OF ALL WARS EVERYWHERE.

Dulce Et Decorum Est,

By Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!–An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

DUCATI PRESENTS ITS NEW MODEL RANGE 2009

2008-11-04T15:32:00.000-08:00

THE NEW DUCATI MODELS ARE MAKING THEIR DEBUT BEFORE THE HUGE CROWDS OF EICMA. THE GLOBAL PREVIEW OF THE NEW DUCATI STREETFIGHTER WAS A GREAT SUCCESS WHILE THE SUPERBIKE FAMILY WELCOMES THE NEW 1198 AND THE LIMITED EDITION 1098 R ‘BAYLISS’. THE 1100 MONSTER COMPLETES THE NEW ADDITIONS FOR 2009.

A real, live runway, as those used during the Milan fashion week, set the scene for the entrance of the 2009 new additions in the Bologna manufacturer’s range. These dream bikes are the result of Italian genius and creativity and will capture the attention of everyone visiting EICMA 2008, Milan’s international motorcycle show being held at the city’s international exhibition centre in Rho, from 4 to 9 November. From here they will go on to setting new standards as they arrive on the international market.

A press conference brimming with information, technical details and new unveilings was held prior to the official opening of the show. Gabriele Del Torchio, CEO of Ducati Motor Holding, met members of the international press and presented the amazing sporting and sales achievements that the Bologna company has recently recorded, as evidence of the Italian manufacturer’s strength and performance.

Before the 2009 models were let loose, the press was also shown the new Ducati logo, an evolution of the historic brand name, which now includes a new red shield featuring a new graphic symbol, alongside the classic Ducati script. This replaces the previous, celebrated, stylised letter ‘D’ and makes this motorcycling logo even more eye-catching and unique in its representation of passion, competition and performance.

“Confidence and passion are the two key words for the coming year. – said Mr Del Torchio as he opened the conference – These words are directly inspired by the results we have achieved in 2008, during which we have continued to grow, despite the shrinking markets, to the extent that our sales have increased by 25% in just two years. Our confidence and passion come from having identified a series of strategic activities that we at Ducati are working on both internally and externally, in order to offer our customers all around the world increasingly innovative, reliable and distinctive products, which are guaranteed to make their dreams come true. We are convinced that by working in this direction, as we have underlined in our company mission, we can generate a positive future for our shareholders and our customers, as ambassadors of Italian products adding prestige to our worldwide standing.

The amazing new products that we have brought to EICMA 2008 represent the fruit of our technological research and development, which Ducati expresses through its updated range, confirming how much this company is focused on the product as well as supporting and sustaining our sales targets for the next few years.”

Claudio Domenicali, General Product Manager of Ducati Motor Holding, introduced the major and eagerly awaited new Ducati products for 2009.

The real star of the event was the new Ducati Streetfighter, which is already among the top contenders for the title “best bike of the show”.

Stripped to the bare essentials, its combination of state-of-the-art race technology, exposed styling and cultured design takes Ducati’s big naked concept to the very top of the fighter food chain.

With 155hp of awesome Ducati L-Twin muscle harnessed in a stripped-down, super-light bike that packs more punch for its weight than any other contender, this fighter is gloves-off and ready for action.

Whether laying down the miles on open roads or ripping up the urban asphalt, no other bike in town will roll with the same stylish fire-power.
This ultimate naked will be ripping-up the asphalt from Spring 2009.

Ducati Streetfighter is also available in a “S” version equipped with Öhlins suspension, lightweight forged Marchesini wheels, carbon fibre parts and a street-going Ducati Traction Control.

For 2009, the Ducati Superbike family has two major new additions, both made absolutely special by their engine size as well as equipment and components – these are two bikes that are sure to carry on and increase the success achieved with the celebrated 1098.

The new DUCATI 1198, while maintaining the same look as the previous 1098, is in fact a totally new bike. The 1198, which produces a powerful 170hp (125kW) from its new Testastretta Evoluzione engine, and has a dry weight of just 171kg (377lb), incorporates all of the World Superbike technology derived directly from the 2008 World Championship winning race bike of Troy Bayliss.

The Ducati Data Analysis, supplied as standard equipment on the 1198 S model, enables the retrieval and analysis of data collected from a track session or road trip. The innovative road-going Ducati Traction Control (DTC) system monitors front and rear wheel speeds to detect rear wheel-spin under acceleration and electronically reduces engine power to restore traction. DTC, which offers a choice of eight settings, provides a considerable increase in safety during mid-corner acceleration.

EICMA is also the first major opportunity to celebrate the great sporting results Ducati has achieved in 2008. Second place in the MotoGP series and Superbike World Championship titles, both for riders’ and manufacturers’, thanks to the victory of Troy Bayliss - in the debut year of the 1098 F08.

After his resounding victory, Troy announced his retirement from motorcycle racing and Ducati decided to celebrate his career by producing the limited edition ‘1098 R Bayliss’, a worthy conclusion to a career during which he won three World Championship titles aboard three different generations of Ducati Superbikes.

Ducati add the new Monster 1100 and 1100 S to the 2009 range, both icons of Italian excellence. Dedicated to those who want to make the ultimate expression, this jewel of style and performance is powered by the charismatic two-valve 1100cc Desmodromic twin-cylinder engine, famous the world over for its legendary torque and acceleration.

The 2009 range is completed by the new pearl white colour for the Hypermotard 1100 and Multistrada 1100 S and the new black with white stripe livery version of the GT 1000, available also in a special Touring version.
In addition, Ducati presents many new accessories, special components and a new collection of Ducati clothing.

For more information on the new Ducati model range, please visit

http://www.ducati.com/en/bikes/index.jhtml

THE DESERT OF THE REAL ENDORSES ELWYN TINKLENBERG FOR CONGRESS!

2008-11-02T07:53:00.000-08:00

THE DESERT OF THE REAL MAKES ITS FIRST AND LIKELY ONLY POLITICAL ENDORSEMENT.

ELWYN TINKLENBERG FOR CONGRESS IN THE MINNESOTA SIXTH DISTRICT.

This endoresment may seem a little curious, as the Desert of the Real usually avoids overt partisan political content. Further, the Author currently lives in New Mexico.

But the Author formerly lived in Minnesota and wishes he still did. Minnesota was the best place the Author lived and believes that it is the state that most clearly reflects his values and ideals. He hopes that he will return one day.

And he went one step further. He donated money to the Tinklenberg campaign.

TINKLENBERG'S OPPONENT, MICHELE BACHMAN, IS AN ABOMINATION AND AN INSULT TO THE CITIZENS OF MINNESOTA.

Bachman is in that rare class of congress people that combine political extremism with arrogance, idiocy, bigotry and sociopatic behavior. Ingnonimous figures such as Gus Savage, James Traficant, and Indiana's own Danny Boy Burton.

ELWYN TINKLENBERG EMINENTLY QUALIFIED.

Elwyn "El" Tinklenberg is a dedicated public servant. Below is his biography from his website:

Elwyn Tinklenberg, 57, was born in Princeton and grew up on a farm in Pease, Minnesota, a small, Dutch, farming community in central Minnesota, where he learned the values of faith, pragmatism and hard work.

He received his undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota at Duluth and attended seminary at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He served as a United Methodist Minister in Blaine, Minnesota from 1977 to 1986.

While serving on the city council for 4 years and as Mayor of Blaine from 1987 to 1996, Tinklenberg quickly gained a reputation as an expert in the field of transportation, eventually serving as Governor Jesse Ventura's Commissioner of Transportation from 1999 to 2002. Charged with managing the day-to-day operations of the department's 5,500 employees and $2 billion annual budget, he worked directly with the legislature to secure funding for the state's first light rail, the development of a regional commuter plan, and a (short-term) doubling of the state transportation budget. In 2003 he served on the Board of Directors for the American Public Transportation Association.

In 2006, Tinklenberg ran for congress in Minnesota's sixth district. He eventually lost out on an opportunity to run in the general election when he was narrowly defeated by Patty Wetterling in a bid for the DFL endorsement.

Currently, Tinklenberg is President of The Tinklenberg Group, a consulting firm that specializes in transportation and related issues affecting government and businesses.

Tinklenberg lives in Blaine with his wife Terri. He is the father of two sons and one daughter with his late wife, the step-father of three children and has seven grandchildren.

ELWYN TINKLENBERG IS AN HONORARY CITIZEN OF, AND IS THE HONORARY CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVE TO, THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

HAVE A FEW RAZOR BLADES WITH THAT APPLE.

2008-11-01T16:29:00.000-07:00

HOW ABOUT A LITTLE FIRE, YOU DEMON SPAWN OF SOCIALIST WEALTH SPREADERS AND FOODEATERS!

AND WHO BETTER TO CAST OUT (OR ALLOW TO OPT IN) WITCHES THAN SARAH PALIN'S PREACHER!

And finally...

YOU MEET THE NICEST PEOPLE IN BORDERLINE PERSONALITY CONVENTIONS AND BEHIND McCAIN AND PALIN LAWN SIGNS!

WE HAVE PUT THIS WOMEN TO WORK IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL, STORING DRY ICE BETWEEN HERE LEGS!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

2008-10-29T08:50:00.000-07:00

The "Groovy Ghoulies" rocked Saturday mornings in the early 1970s. The "Goovy Ghoulies" are also a post-punk band fromn California.

MORE ON WHAT USED TO BE CALLED SAMHAIN...

Halloween is one of the Author's favorite holidays. As kids in rural Indiana, it meant trick-or-treating, pranks, cool candy and stuff at the local store, and juvenile mayhem.

Halloween also coincided with the end of mild fall weather and the beginning of cold weather. Football was over and basketball was starting.

As kids we tromped through leaf-strewn streets to load up with candy. When we were real little kids, we went with a babysitter who knew all of the best houses.

As we got older Halloween took on a little more mayhem. We spent one junior high Halloween in the grave yard. Nothing scary at all. Except our mid-term grades and our prospects for getting girls to sit with us at lunch.

HALLOWEEN IS A PAID HOLIDAY IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

AN INFREQUENT MOTORCYCLE POST

2008-10-26T08:29:00.000-07:00

Other than shilling for Ducati as a Ducati-qualified news outlet, the Author has not posted a motorcycle-related piece in sometime. And the Author rarely posts US military-related material.

But a motorcycle/military article in the Sunday October 26th New York Times is worth a look.

As one might imagine, young males, ubertestosterone gulping types, suffer high rates of casualties on sportsbikes. No surprise there.

Lots of young males are in the armed services. And the military wants to protect its people.(Interestingly, and anecdotally, the Author notes that many younger cop types favor Suzuki Hayabusas, one of the fastest production motorcycles available.)

It is also interesting to note that many of the motorcycle clubs cum gangs were started after World War II by returning war vets. Young men trained only in war, they returned to the conformist monotony of post-war America. They wanted more and motorcycles provided a well-deserved outlet. Rootless revenants looking for an unrequited reward.

Here is the NYT article posted in its entirety.

For Some in the Military, Danger Is Seen Off Duty, Too

By SARAH M. RICHARDS

WASHINGTON — Whether Seaman Greg Harm knows it or not, the military is worried about him. And it is not because of what he does when he is working as an aviation technician stationed at Andrews Air Force Base.

It is what he is doing when he is not at work: riding a 2003 Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle that can reach speeds of 160 miles per hour.

So many members of the armed forces have been dying on sport bikes like the Ninja that the Navy and Marines have made special training mandatory for sport bike riders this year. In one weekend in September, the Navy lost four men in sport bike accidents.

Some military officials are concerned that industry pressure to sell motorcycles and lax state licensing are allowing riders with poor skills on the road.

Dale Wisnieski, a former motorcycle police officer in Virginia who manages the Navy program, began developing it last year with the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, an industry financed nonprofit group that oversees motorcycle training in most states.

“We’ve got machines right now that are governed at 187 miles per hour that you can buy on a showroom floor in our country and not even have a motorcycle license to buy it,” Mr. Wisnieski said.

Seaman Harm, 23, who returned in March from four months in Afghanistan, paid $2,900 for his motorcycle.

“I always wanted one and my friend was selling it for cheap, so I bought it,” Seaman Harm said. “I love the rush, having it.”

He was participating in the new program, held at the Anacostia Naval Station here.

In the last 12 months, 50 of the 58 sailors and marines killed on motorcycles were on sport bikes, which are faster and easier to maneuver than their cruiser counterparts. The Army, which also has a training program, lost 36 soldiers in sport bike accidents in the same time period.

The accidents follow a pattern: excessive speed, poor cornering and insufficient braking.

Tracy Martin, who runs a private riding program aimed at high-performance motorcycles, said an Air Force safety official told him that he could predict who was going to die next.

“He said it would be a guy under 25, working in maintenance, he’d have a sport bike, and he’d own it for about a month,” Mr. Martin said. “He said, ‘The only thing I don’t know is his name.’ ”

Concern in the military grew so great that Navy officials went to Irvine, Calif., last November to meet with members of the Motorcycle Safety Foundation. Collaboration among Navy, Army and Motorcycle Safety Foundation officials led to the creation of the Military Sportbike Rider Course a few months later.

Military personnel already have stricter motorcycle regulations than civilians. To take a motorcycle on base, riders must have at least passed the beginners’ course offered by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation. They must also wear helmets, regardless of state law.

Nevertheless, officials say, many simply ride without a motorcycle license when they are off duty.

During the recent sport bike class at Anacostia, two trainers stood in the middle of a large concrete lot as military helicopters buzzed overhead. The 12 students were either military personnel or civilians working for the Navy.

The riders had spent the morning in a classroom discussing issues like risk assessment and were now practicing braking and cornering.

“We’re really trying to find a way to touch these soldiers and sailors and get a handle on this because it’s a shame,” said Bridget Hunke, one of the instructors. “They go overseas, go into combat, come back, and they get killed on a motorcycle.”

Some officials theorize that military personnel returning home from a war zone turn to sport bikes for an adrenaline rush. “How long does it take you after you leave that neighborhood to kind of loosen up?” said Wayne Miller, a retired marine who ran motorcycle safety at Camp Pendleton. “Can you imagine being in an environment for eight months, not knowing whether you’re going to come home or not, and then having to flip a magic switch?”

Military officials say that they have not been able to link combat experience to sport bike fatalities, and that some of the deaths have involved people with no combat experience.

Mr. Wisnieski said that there had been a rise in sailors registering sport bikes and that it was difficult to pinpoint a specific cause behind the fatal accidents.

“Individuals have served overseas two and three times,” Mr. Wisnieski said. “So at what point do they buy their motorcycle? Do they buy it after the first time? Second? Or third?”

Of the 17,000 estimated sport bike riders in the Navy and Marines, roughly 1,600 have taken the new course. One of the four sailors killed in September was a recent graduate.

“The military sport bike course is not the silver bullet to our problem,” Mr. Wisnieski said.

Motorcycle licenses are relatively easy to obtain in the United States. In other countries, including Britain, beginning riders are generally restricted to smaller, less powerful motorcycles.

Ray Ochs, the director of training systems at the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, is doubtful that stricter licensing would reduce fatalities. “They don’t have any better record — at least it’s not documented — than we do in this country” Mr. Ochs said.

Mr. Miller said that he, too, was wary of government intervention but that he thought limiting beginners to smaller motorcycles might help reduce fatalities. “What that does is allow riders to stay alive long enough to buy a third, fourth and fifth bike,” Mr. Miller said. “What a novel idea.”

LIFE IS LIVED ON THE CONTACT PATCH IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

QUANTUS PEIOR COULD VOS PLANTO IS?

2008-10-19T07:36:00.000-07:00

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The Author often cracks wise that "he has forgotten more about healthcare economics than most people will ever know" (That is not necessarily self-aggrandizement as the Author is an exceedingly forgetful person.)

John McCain (his wildly erratic conduct aside) attempts to cast himself as the stable, rock-ribbed choice for president in these uncertain time. By contrast, McCain describes Obama as an untried and untested radical.

But of all of McCain's proposals, none is more radical, untested, and irrational than his healthcare proposal. But don't take the Author's word for it. Read what a leading physician and policy expert has to say.

DISCLAIMER: Dr. Blumenthal is an unpaid healthcare policy advisor to Obama.

Below is an article from The New England Journal of Medicine published in the September 24, 2006 edition.

Primum Non Nocere — The McCain Plan for Health Insecurity

David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P.

The most important questions raised by the health care proposals of the presidential candidates concern their values and judgment. These will guide a new president through the tortuous, unpredictable process of leading health care change. The specifics of candidates' proposals matter. But more important is what health plans communicate about a prospective president's fundamental beliefs and character.

By this standard, John McCain emerges not as a maverick or centrist but as a radical social conservative firmly in the grip of the ideology that animates the domestic policies of President George W. Bush. The central purpose of President Bush's health policy, and John McCain's, is to reduce the role of insurance and make Americans pay a larger part of their health care bills out of pocket. Their embrace of market forces, fierce antagonism toward government, and determination to force individuals to have more "skin in the game" are overriding — all other goals are subsidiary. Indeed, the Republican commitment to market-oriented reforms is so strong that, to attain their vision, Bush and McCain seem willing to take huge risks with the efficiency, equity, and stability of our health care system. Specifically, the McCain plan would profoundly threaten the current system of employer-sponsored insurance on which more than three fifths of Americans depend, increase reliance on unregulated individual insurance markets (which are notoriously inefficient), and leave the number of uninsured Americans virtually unchanged. A side effect of the McCain plan would be to threaten access to adequate insurance for millions of America's sickest citizens.

In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower (a Republican) signed Internal Revenue Service regulations exempting from personal income taxation employers' contributions to the cost of their employees' health insurance.1 The purpose was to encourage the growth of private insurance. Eisenhower's decision proved spectacularly effective: 160 million Americans now obtain private health insurance in the workplace.

Senator McCain would end the exemption from federal income tax for employer-sponsored insurance. One result is predictable: a reduction in the number of companies providing and subsidizing health insurance for their employees. Over the years, multiple studies have shown that as the tax benefit to employees of receiving employer-sponsored insurance declines, employers are less likely to offer it. On the basis of these studies, economists project that 10 million to 28 million of the 160 million Americans with employer-sponsored insurance will lose it as a result.2,3,4 These newly uninsured Americans will enter the tumultuous individual insurance market. Many employers that continue to subsidize insurance will probably reduce their contributions, forcing employees to bear a larger portion of the costs. Senator McCain denies that this is a likely effect of his policy, but his denials defy the economic logic of the marketplace, which he otherwise embraces.

If your goal is to make Americans bear more of the costs of illness, forcing them into individual markets and making them pay more for any remaining employer-sponsored insurance policies is certainly appealing. Conservatives theorize that tough, motivated, wily consumers will battle the insurance companies into submission, compelling them to offer cheaper, better plans.

The reality, however, is very different. In the individual market, administrative costs consume 30 to 50% of premiums, as compared with 12 to 15% in the large-group, employer-sponsored insurance market. The McCain plan, therefore, could cause administrative waste to skyrocket. Because of these high administrative expenses, and because insurers want to avoid sick people, individual health insurance tends to be less generous than employer-sponsored plans, requiring higher deductibles and copayments and offering less coverage of preventive and catastrophic care. Perhaps most worrisome is that many chronically ill patients who lose employer-sponsored coverage will have trouble finding any insurance at all in the individual market. The McCain plan calls for deregulating private insurance markets — eliminating, for example, state requirements that insurers offer plans to persons with preexisting conditions.

To counter these side effects, McCain will offer a $2,500 tax credit for individuals and a $5,000 tax credit for families to help them purchase health insurance. But consider the math. The average family policy in the United States now costs about $12,000, of which the average employer contributes about 75% ($9,000). Thus, if they could find comparable insurance in the individual market, that coverage would cost families losing employer-sponsored insurance $4,000 more than they previously paid ($9,000 minus $5,000). Many of these families will enter the ranks of the uninsured.

The McCain proposal will also encourage so-called association health plans (AHPs) — voluntary groups of consumers that can operate across state lines and purchase insurance on behalf of their members. By joining such plans, individuals will presumably enjoy the protections that large groups, including employer pools, offer their members. However, the required AHPs don't exist now. If they did, they would be tempted to cherry-pick healthy members just as insurance companies do. Voluntary associations of the sick and healthy do not naturally occur, and there is a good reason why.

A plan that increases the numbers of uninsured workers will have a hard time reducing the total number of uninsured people in the United States. McCain argues that his tax credit will cut the ranks of the uninsured by 30 million, but there is no empirical basis for this contention. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated in 2007 that President Bush's very similar proposal would reduce the uninsured by 6.8 million in 2010.5 However, the CBO used a very conservative estimate of the number of workers who would lose employer-sponsored insurance: about 6.3 million. The actual number could easily be double or triple this figure.

The McCain plan may not decrease the number of uninsured at all, and in fact, McCain, unlike Obama, has never made a commitment to insuring all Americans. Expanding coverage is not a primary purpose of McCain's health policy.

A particularly worrisome feature of the McCain plan would be to undermine care for the chronically ill. Insurance companies avoid chronically ill patients: they are expensive, reduce profits, and drive up premiums, thus making it harder to attract more profitable, healthy customers. The result is that chronically ill Americans are too often health care's homeless: uninsured, underinsured, and impoverished by medical expenses.

The McCain plan would worsen their plight in several ways. First, by deregulating private insurance markets, it would lift requirements in many states that insurance companies sell coverage (at a price, to be sure) to all comers. Second, as noted, it would reduce employer-sponsored insurance, which covers many chronically ill Americans. Third, by encouraging consumers to purchase less generous insurance plans, the McCain reforms would reduce the use of vital health maintenance services among the chronically ill, thus potentially jeopardizing their health and raising the costs of their care.

Recognizing these risks, McCain proposes a solution: greater reliance on state high-risk pools. Thirty-five states currently maintain such pools, but they enroll only about 190,000 people. The reason is that states are unwilling or unable to subsidize adequately the extremely high premiums that pools charge the chronically ill. McCain has talked vaguely of providing additional federal funds (in the range of $7 billion to $10 billion) to help states out, but he has not detailed this part of his plan. In any case, it raises a more fundamental question: What are the long-range consequences of segregating the sickest Americans into a predominantly state-run high-risk insurance system, especially in regions that have been notoriously ungenerous toward vulnerable populations? States vary enormously in their willingness to pay for health care costs of populations that depend on them: witness the differences in Medicaid programs across the country. It seems likely that the same regional variation would occur in the generosity of a state-based system for insuring chronically ill Americans.

The choice facing health care professionals, like all Americans, is basic: Who deserves to be trusted with the stewardship of America's health care system? The McCain proposal violates the bedrock principle that major health policy reforms should first do no harm. It would risk the viability of employer-sponsored insurance and the welfare of chronically ill Americans in pell-mell pursuit of a radical vision of consumer-driven health care. Senator McCain's plan does not demonstrate the kind of judgment needed in a potential commander in chief of our health care system.

Dr. Blumenthal reports serving as an unpaid advisor to the Obama for President campaign. No other potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

Source Information

This article (10.1056/NEJMp0806563) was published at www.nejm.org on September 24, 2008.

Dr. Blumenthal is director of the Institute for Health Policy, Massachusetts General Hospital/Partners Healthcare System, Boston.

TAKING THE DAY OFF IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

A DEMOCRATIC WIN IS NOT ENOUGH. A DEMOCRATIC ROUT IS REQUIRED. THE CANAILLE MUST BE NUETERED.

2008-10-17T05:46:00.001-07:00

HATE FROM THE "HEARTLAND".

The job before democracy is to get rid of such canaille. If it fails, they will devour it.

H.L. Mencken's eulogy of William Jennings Bryan.

BELOW IS A REPOST OF A BLOG FROM MAY 13, 2008

AUTHOR'S NOTE: First, a confession of a hideous nature. The Author USED to be a racist. He was raised in rural Indiana around racist people. (Not his family, thankfully). But he picked up the prejudices that were and are still common in Indiana.

The Author is no longer prejudiced. Whether it was a spiritual conversion or the rational realization that "race" is a construct developed to divide human beings and that all human beings are worthy of the same love and respect, the Author does not know. And it does not matter. The Author makes no claim to piety. But on this issue, the trash in the attic has been thrown away.

If you need evidence, read the Author's many posts that decry prejudice, racism, nativism and bigotry. But the real evidence is in the Author's heart and mind.

So it is with some amount of contempt that the Author posts this article about the racism that still simmers in his home state of Indiana. And in rural Pennsylvania.

Particularly odious comments are highlighted in bold.

The article appears in today's MSNBC. It is entitled:

"Racism alarms Obama's backers"
Candidate's foot soldiers encounter name-calling, vandalism, bomb threats

WASHINGTON - Danielle Ross was alone in an empty room at the Obama campaign headquarters in Kokomo, Ind., a cellphone in one hand, a voter call list in the other. She was stretched out on the carpeted floor wearing laceless sky-blue Converses, stories from the trail on her mind. It was the day before Indiana's primary, and she had just been chased by dogs while canvassing in a Kokomo suburb. But that was not the worst thing to occur since she postponed her sophomore year at Middle Tennessee State University, in part to hopscotch America stumping for Barack Obama.

Here's the worst: In Muncie, a factory town in the east-central part of Indiana, Ross and her cohorts were soliciting support for Obama at malls, on street corners and in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and they ran into "a horrible response," as Ross put it, a level of anti-black sentiment that none of them had anticipated.

"The first person I encountered was like, 'I'll never vote for a black person,' " recalled Ross, who is white and just turned 20. "People just weren't receptive."

For all the hope and excitement Obama's candidacy is generating, some of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed -- and unreported -- this election season. Doors have been slammed in their faces. They've been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they've endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can't fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president.

The contrast between the large, adoring crowds Obama draws at public events and the gritty street-level work to win votes is stark. The candidate is largely insulated from the mean-spiritedness that some of his foot soldiers deal with away from the media spotlight.

Meeting cruel reaction

Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: "It wasn't pretty." She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn't possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"

Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy, said she, too, came across "a lot of racism" when campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania. One Pittsburgh union organizer told her he would not vote for Obama because he is black, and a white voter, she said, offered this frank reason for not backing Obama: "White people look out for white people, and black people look out for black people."

Obama campaign officials say such incidents are isolated, that the experience of most volunteers and staffers has been overwhelmingly positive.

The campaign released this statement in response to questions about encounters with racism: "After campaigning for 15 months in nearly all 50 states, Barack Obama and our entire campaign have been nothing but impressed and encouraged by the core decency, kindness, and generosity of Americans from all walks of life. The last year has only reinforced Senator Obama's view that this country is not as divided as our politics suggest."

Campaign field work can be an exercise in confronting the fears, anxieties and prejudices of voters. Veterans of the civil rights movement know what this feels like, as do those who have been involved in battles over busing, immigration or abortion. But through the Obama campaign, some young people are having their first experience joining a cause and meeting cruel reaction.

On Election Day in Kokomo, a group of black high school students were holding up Obama signs along U.S. 31, a major thoroughfare. As drivers cruised by, a number of them rolled down their windows and yelled out a common racial slur for African Americans, according to Obama campaign staffers.

Frederick Murrell, a black Kokomo High School senior, was not there but heard what happened. He was more disappointed than surprised. During his own canvassing for Obama, Murrell said, he had "a lot of doors slammed" in his face. But taunting teenagers on a busy commercial strip in broad daylight? "I was very shocked at first," Murrell said. "Then again, I wasn't, because we have a lot of racism here."

Vandalism, bomb threats

The bigotry has gone beyond words. In Vincennes, the Obama campaign office was vandalized at 2 a.m. on the eve of the primary, according to police. A large plate-glass window was smashed, an American flag stolen. Other windows were spray-painted with references to Obama's controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and other political messages: "Hamas votes BHO" and "We don't cling to guns or religion. Goddamn Wright."

Ray McCormick was notified of the incident at about 2:45 a.m. A farmer and conservationist, McCormick had erected a giant billboard on a major highway on behalf of Farmers for Obama. He also was housing the Obama campaign worker manning the office. When McCormick arrived at the office, about two hours before he was due out of bed to plant corn, he grabbed his camera and wanted to alert the media. "I thought, this is a big deal." But he was told Obama campaign officials didn't want to make a big deal of the incident. McCormick took photos anyway and distributed some.

The pictures represent what we are breaking through and overcoming," he said. As McCormick, who is white, sees it, Obama is succeeding despite these incidents. Later, there would be bomb threats to three Obama campaign offices in Indiana, including the one in Vincennes, according to campaign sources.

Obama has not spoken much about racism during this campaign. He has sought to emphasize connections among Americans rather than divisions. He shrugged off safety concerns that led to early Secret Service protection and has told black senior citizens who worry that racists will do him harm: Don't fret. Earlier in the campaign, a 68-year-old woman in Carson City, Nev., voiced concern that the country was not ready to elect an African American president.

"Will there be some folks who probably won't vote for me because I am black? Of course," Obama said, "just like there may be somebody who won't vote for Hillary because she's a woman or wouldn't vote for John Edwards because they don't like his accent. But the question is, 'Can we get a majority of the American people to give us a fair hearing?' "

Skilled at bridging divides

Obama has won 30 of 50 Democratic contests so far, the kind of nationwide electoral triumph no black candidate has ever realized. That he is on the brink of capturing the Democratic nomination, some say, is a testament to how far the country has progressed in overcoming racism and evidence of Obama's skill at bridging divides.

Obama has won five of 12 primaries in which black voters made up less than 10 percent of the electorate, and caucuses in states such as Idaho and Wyoming that are overwhelmingly white. But exit polls show he has struggled to attract white voters who didn't attend college and earn less than $50,000 a year. Today, he and Hillary Clinton square off in West Virginia, a state where she is favored and where the votes of working-class whites will again be closely watched.

For the most part, Obama campaign workers say, the 2008 election cycle has been exhilarating. On the ground, the Obama campaign is being driven by youngsters, many of whom are imbued with an optimism undeterred by racial intolerance. "We've grown up in a different world," says Danielle Ross. Field offices are staffed by 20-somethings who hold positions -- state director, regional field director, field organizer -- that are typically off limits to newcomers to presidential politics.

Gillian Bergeron, 23, was in charge of a five-county regional operation in northeastern Pennsylvania. The oldest member of her team was 27. At Scranton's annual Saint Patrick's Day parade, some of the green Obama signs distributed by staffers were burned along the parade route. That was the first signal that this wasn't exactly Obama country. There would be others.

In a letter to the editor published in a local paper, Tunkhannock Borough Mayor Norm Ball explained his support of Hillary Clinton this way: "Barack Hussein Obama and all of his talk will do nothing for our country. There is so much that people don't know about his upbringing in the Muslim world. His stepfather was a radical Muslim and the ranting of his minister against the white America, you can't convince me that some of that didn't rub off on him.

"No, I want a president that will salute our flag, and put their hand on the Bible when they take the oath of office."

Obama's campaign workers have grown wearily accustomed to the lies about the candidate's supposed radical Muslim ties and lack of patriotism. But they are sometimes astonished when public officials such as Ball or others representing the campaign of their opponent traffic in these falsehoods.

Karen Seifert, a volunteer from New York, was outside of the largest polling location in Lackawanna County, Pa., on primary day when she was pressed by a Clinton volunteer to explain her backing of Obama. "I trust him," Seifert replied. According to Seifert, the woman pointed to Obama's face on Seifert's T-shirt and said: "He's a half-breed and he's a Muslim. How can you trust that?"

Racial attitudes difficult to measure

Pollsters have found it difficult to accurately measure racial attitudes, as some voters are unwilling to acknowledge the role that race plays in their thinking. But some are not. Susan Dzimian, a Clinton supporter who owns residential properties, said outside a polling location in Kokomo that race was a factor in how she viewed Obama. "I think if it was somebody other than him, I'd accept it," she said of a black candidate. "If Colin Powell had run, I would be willing to accept him."

The previous evening, Dondra Ewing was driving the neighborhoods of Kokomo, looking to turn around voters like Dzimian. Ewing, 47, is a chain-smoking middle school guidance counselor, a black single mother of two and one of the most fiercely vigilant Obama volunteers in Kokomo, which was once a Ku Klux Klan stronghold. On July 4, 1923, Kokomo hosted the largest Klan gathering in history -- an estimated 200,000 followers flocked to a local park. But these are not the 1920s, and Ewing believes she can persuade anybody to back Obama. Her mother, after all, was the first African American elected at-large to the school board in a community that is 10 percent black.

Kokomo, population 46,000, is another hard-hit Midwestern industrial town stung by layoffs. Longtimers wistfully remember the glory years of Continental Steel and speak mournfully about the jobs shipped overseas. Kokomo Sanitary Pottery, which made bathroom sinks and toilets, shut down a couple of months ago and took with it 150 jobs.

Aaron Roe, 23, was mowing lawns at a local cemetery recently, lamenting his $8-an-hour job with no benefits. He had earned a community college degree as an industrial electrician, but learned there was no electrical work to be found for someone with his experience, which is to say none. Politics wasn't on his mind; frustration was. If he were to vote, it would not be for Obama, he said. "I just got a funny feeling about him," Roe said, a feeling he couldn't specify, except to say race wasn't a part of it. "Race ain't nothing," said Roe, who is white. "It's how they're going to help the country."

People with funny feelings

The Aaron Roes are exactly who Dondra Ewing was after: people with funny feelings.

At the Bradford Run Apartments, she found Robert Cox, a retiree who spent 30 years working for an electronics manufacturer making computer chips. He was in his suspenders, grilling shish kebab, which he had never eaten. "Something new," Cox said, recommended by his son who was visiting from Colorado.

Ewing was selling him hard on Obama. "There are more than two families that can run the United States of America," she said, "and their names aren't Bush and Clinton."

"Yeah, I know, I know," Cox said, remaining noncommittal.

He opened the grill and peeked at the kebabs. "It's not his race, because I got real good friends and all that," Cox continued. "If anything would keep him from getting elected, it would be his name. It might turn off some older people."

Like him?

"No, older than me," said Cox, 66.

Ewing kept talking, until finally Cox said, "Probably Obama," when asked directly how he would vote.

As she walked away, Ewing said: "I think we got him."

But truthfully, she wasn't feeling so sure

THE DESERT OF THE REAL IS BARACK OBAMA COUNTRY!

THE LATEST LIE

2008-10-16T17:03:00.000-07:00

THE ELDRITCH DAY OF ECONOMIC MAYHEM THIS WAY COMES. (NO, NOT ELECTION DAY. HALLOWEEN!)

2008-10-15T15:37:00.000-07:00

Below is a reprint of a personal favorite of the Author's from last October.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: Where but in the Desert of the Real could the Dismal Science of Economics combine with the Hollowing Heart of Evil that Hosts that Most Horrific of Harvest Festivals?]

HALLOWEEN ECONOMICS 201

Halloween 2007 is a fading memory, unlike the candy left in dishes and the decorations that are still to be removed from offices and homes in all corners of the nation.

Halloween Economics 101 goes something like this. “Halloween Scares Up Business”. This story in the Lawrence Kansas World-Journal informs us that Halloween is a retail mainstay in the American Economy.

Candy and costume sales peak. Decorations of all sorts fly, crawl or lumber down retail aisles. And alcohol sales rise with the ubiquitous Halloween parties.

And except for some Christian fundamentalists, everybody loves Halloween. Everybody, it appears, but some economists. The truth is, Halloween challenges some economic truths right down to their skeletal essence.

Halloween, like its less macabre cousin, Christmas, is economically “inefficient”. And it reveals that the economic uber-man, the foot soldier and general of microeconomics, the flesh and bones that manipulate the invisible hand, the “Rational Economic Actor”, is as peckish as a poltergeist.

PUTRID PROSE AND CLICHÉ ALERT. IF YOU WEREN’T SCARED OFF ALREADY.

Kevin Hassett is an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Likely a fine fellow most of the time, while in his economist cusps, Hassett is both Great Pumpkin smasher and the Grinch’s meaner brother.

Hassett’s howlings start like this:

Holidays are a time when Americans kick back and engage in activities that make no economic sense whatsoever. Of all the terrors lurking in the streets and alleys across the U.S. tomorrow night, the economics of Halloween may be the most horrific.

EVILLY INEFFICENT IS THE HALLOWEEN HOLIDAY.

Economists haven't adopted the vainglorious practice of physicists and applied numbers to their laws, but if they did, the first law of economics would be that lump-sum transfers are more economically efficient than in-kind transfers. If you are going to give a gift to somebody, you should just give them the money. They will be a better judge of the best way to spend it.

This is chapter and verse of microeconomic theory. Individual actors, in best possession of their perception of needs and wants, and being best able to value goods and services to maximize the utility of their choices, make the most rational and efficient economic decisions.

‘Twas ever thus.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD-WEIGHT LOSS.

Hassett continues:

This is no laughing matter. The scale of the problem is immense. The National Confectioners Association estimates that 2005 Halloween sales were $2.1 billion, easily making Halloween the biggest candy season. This year, sales will certainly be higher.

What percentage of those sales end up providing candy that individuals don't really like? If my own careful scientific study of Halloween bags is any guide, perhaps about 75 percent.

It's not the dead that concern me about Halloween. And it is not the impact of all that sugar on the weight of our kids. No, it's the dead-weight loss, or pointless lost utility of the entire enterprise. That likely has a dollar value that exceeds $1.5 billion annually. American citizens squander more than a billion and a half dollars a year on an economically inefficient holiday.

BRAIN DEAD YET?

Here’s the bat’s-eve view: Hassett, in the quote above, describes Halloween as an enterprise. In other words, think of Halloween as a gigantic wealth transfer mechanism. Preening and wretchedly wistful adults transfer many millions of dollars (in bite-sized increments) to marauding and mooching children.

But the kids would rather have money, computer gaming gift certificates, or text-messaging credits. As they say in the Mafia and on the middle-school playground, “cash makes no enemies.”

A PHANTASMIGORIC FIX OR A FUTILE FANTASY??

Hassett proposes an economic solution, a pumkintudious “patch”, it you will.

Many schools prohibit children from taking Halloween candy onto the premises. That is exactly the wrong policy. Schools should encourage all children to bring their entire haul to school, and allow them a lengthy period to trade candies among themselves. That way, the Take 5s and the 100 Grand bars will find their way to individuals who cherish them.

And if that doesn’t work, he raises the foreboding specter of the brutish hand of the ghouls of government.

A final measure would be to take on inefficient candy-giving at the source. As a conservative, I usually oppose heavy-handed regulation, but in this case, the stakes are too high. Perhaps confectioners should be required to only sell their Halloween candy in bags that mix many different types. That way, when families put the candy out for the trick-or-treaters, bowls will be filled with a wide variety of different types of candy, and each new child will be able to pick the confection that suits his or her fancy.

HMM. FEDERAL FIAT PROMOTING GREATER CHOICE AND MORE EFFICIENT ECONOMIC EXCHANGES? SOMEWHERE IN THERE COULD BE A HORRIBLY HEALTHY HEALTHCARE FINANCING SOLUTION.

WE APPEAR TO HAVE TOO MUCH TIME TODAY IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

WITH A VOTER BASE LIKE THIS, YOU WILL NEED A FEW SHORT BUSES TO GET THEM TO AND FROM THE POLLS.

2008-10-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

An Arab proverb that the Author is fond of goes something like this:

When dogs bark, don't bark back.

But it is fun to poke sticks at them through the fence.

DISCLAIMER: No disrespect is intended toward the canine species. And no canine dogs were harmed, demeaned or degraded in the posting of this video, except by the interviewees thmselves.

MORE OF THE GOP'S FINEST!

WE WILL LIKELY HAVE TO POWERWASH AREAS OF THE DESERT OF THE REAL WHERE THIS VIDEO WAS POSTED!

JOHN McCAIN. UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED. UNFIT BY ANY MEASURE.

2008-10-08T10:12:00.000-07:00

One of the claims that George W. Bush made against McCain in the 2000 campaign was that he was "psychologically unfit" to be president. Many merely discounted this claim as another campaign lie from Bush and the Prince Regent of the Underworld, Karl Rove.

During this campaign, much has been written and reported about McCain's truculent, thuggish, and sociopathic personality. And McCain's sociopathic personality is continually on display on the campaign trail and during the debates. All you have to do is watch.

With that in mind, prepare for violent emesis.

WE STILL REMAIN SAFE FROM JOHN McCAIN IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

THE AUTHOR OUGHT TO LISTEN TO HIMSELF A LITTLE MORE OFTEN

2008-10-05T17:42:00.000-07:00

OR AT LEAST LISTEN TO THE VOICES THAT DO NOT THREATEN VIOLENCE AGAINST SMALL PARTS THAT ARE CAPABLE OF BEING SWALLOWED.

Last December the Author posted on the rotted lattice that might bring down the entire economy, the perturbations that could collapse Western Civilization.

Where punk rock, poststructuralism and Mr.Roger's Neighborhood failed, Credit Default Swaps may yet succeed.

For confirmation, one need look no further than October 5th CBS "60 Minutes" broadcast which described the innocuously named Credit Default Swaps.

Below is a reprint of the Author's ignored warning:

ENDOGENOUS UNCERTAINTY. IF WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER, WE ALL MAY GO DOWN TOGETHER.

The Author recently read the December 7th, 2007 edition of John Mauldin’s Newsletter entitled “Black Swans and Endogenous Uncertainty." The newsletter engaged many subjects, but the ultimate point was that the more that risk-reducing assets are injected into markets, overall systemic risk rise. Sounds like a mouthful. It is that and also a brain-full. It seems counterintuitive, but when thought through makes a kind of sense.

THE GREATER THE NUMBER OF NUMBER OF CONNECTIONS WITHIN AN ECONOMIC SYSTEM, THE GREATER THE SYSTEM IS AT RISK.

First, the obligatory humorous example. Many readers have watched sitcoms or perhaps movies where one broken commitment can wreak havoc on all of the characters on the show. The Author vaguely recalls this plotline from Mash, Andy Griffith, and other classics. Let’s see how this would work on the 1970’s classic, “Three’s Company”.

Jack owes Chrissy and Janet for this month’s rent. But he is a little short of cash and can only come up with part of the money. So he makes a deal with Janet that he will cook a fancy gourmet dinner for Janet and her new beau. Jack also makes a bargain with Chrissy that he will find a date for Crissy’s sister, Drifty, when she comes into town next week.

So Jack has created two obligations on his part. One to cook for Janet and another to find a date for Drifty. Jack could met his obligations, or, in sitcom like fashion, pawn these tasks onto others.

Janet’s date with her beau is on Friday night, the same night that Drifty is available for a date. So Jack asks Larry to go on the date with Drifty. To get Larry to go on a date, he offers Larry two tickets to a Journey Concert that his boss promised to give to him.

And it gets more convoluted. A new chick, a real fox in 1970’s parlance, will be moving into the Roper’s apartment building, but her apartment will not be ready for two more weeks. However, this new chick, who we will call Valerie, has heard of Jack’s cooking prowess and tells Jack that she would like to come over Friday night for dinner by Jack and “desert” by Valerie.

Jack has to cook for Janet, but also knows that the Ropers play cards at Mrs. Roper’s sister’s house on Friday night. Jack figures that he can entertain Valerie in the Roper’s empty apartment and run back and forth between his apartment to cook for Janet and her new beau and also cook for, and later be desert for, Valerie.

See how the interactions multiply and the risk of cascade default multiply. If one of a dozen things happen, such as Jack’s boss reneging on the Journey tickets, Mrs. Roper’s sister falling ill and not being able to host the Ropers for cards, or Larry weaseling out of the date with Drifty, cascade default ensues.

NOT SO FUNNY IN REAL LIFE.

Let’s look at an economic example. This is the example that Mauldin gives in his newsletter.

Let's say I own a $10 million corporate bond from Big Automotive Company (BAC) in my portfolio paying 7%. I can go into the market and purchase a credit default swap (CDS) for (say) 2% of the face value of the bonds from a large investment bank (LIB). Now I am getting a net return of 5%, but my risk is greatly reduced. LIB has insured my risk. Now LIB has a liability of $10,000,000 on its books, which of course reduces its capital. So LIB, clever folks that they are, buy another CDS from someone else on the same bonds for 1%, and thus their books are even. They own both a put and a call on $10 million in BAC bonds, so they take no hit to their capital structure. However, they do make a neat $100,000 (the difference in the buy and sell price) for making a market in BAC credit insurance.

Now, there are hundreds of investment banks and hedge funds making markets in all sorts of credit markets, buying and selling these derivatives to thousands of various investors and funds. It is quite possible that the CDS I bought has been re-shuffled a few times, so that we could have five or ten times the face amount of my bonds in the actual derivatives. I have seen reports that the total amount of CDs written on General Motors bonds are ten time the actual number of bonds.

Why would this be? If a hedge fund or investment bank thinks that default insurance on General Motors is too expensive relative to the risk, they can sell the CDS and hope to make a profit when the cost of insurance goes down. This provides liquidity to the market, but also creates a lot of connections among unrelated parties. By that I mean that I am exposed to the default risk of all the counter-parties of the firm who sold me the original insurance.

How? you might ask. Because if one of LIBs creditors defaults, then that reduces the capital of LIB. Let’s say that the $10 billion of total debt in that Big Automotive Company goes bad. I call up LIB and ask for my $10 million. Not a problem, they say. We’ll call the person who sold us the protection, who will call the person from whom they bought protection, until we find someone who is “naked long” BAC debt. Then they will pay up. Or we can hope they do.

But if there are several debt events that happen at once, as say generally does happen in a business downturn, there will be funds or banks that may not have enough capital. Why? Because banks and funds do not have to set aside reserve capital for potential losses and can leverage their exposure by a great deal. Technically, they are safe as the assets and liabilities on their books should match. But those assets are only as good as the counter-party who guarantees them.

BETTING ON LARRY, JACK’S BOSS AND MRS. ROPER’S SISTER. CRAPS.

Of course large financial institutions are more stable than Jack’s obligors. But Jack is only into them for a little. CDSs are in for a lot more.

A thousand things could break the chain of Jack’s interrelated obligation. How many things exist to cause breaks in the chains of derivative obligations? What if the top one or two private mortgage insurance companies would fail? What if their reinsurers would be wiped out by a catastrophic hurricane?

It does seem counterintuitive, that spreading the risk can multiply the risk. Transparency is the answer. Know what you are getting into. And know who you are getting in with.

This is a tough post and the Author will probably mull on this post and the underlying materials a bit more. There is too much there and it is difficult translating. But it is what the Author does.

IT DOESN’T FEED THE TABBY CAT OR KEEP THE RIDGEBACK IN DOGGY TREATS. STILL, IT IS WHAT WE DO IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

THE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL TICKET-AS CHANNELED THROUGH MIKE JUDGE

2008-09-30T14:42:00.000-07:00

Mike Judge is the creator of the popular Fox Network cartoon "King of the Hill" and the Juvenile Bachnalia "Beavis and Butthead". The characters of these shows, interestingly enough, bear some resemblence to the Republican Presidential aspirants and their spouses.

Let's Have a Look!

Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain.

Cindy McCain.

Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin.

Todd "The First Inmate" Palin.

UH, HUH, HUH, WELCOME TO THE DESERT OF THE REAL, ER SOMETHING!

IT'S ALIVE!

2008-09-30T14:39:00.000-07:00

ANOTHER LOOK AT THE CREATION!

2008-09-30T14:37:00.001-07:00

DUCATI 1100 MONSTER

2008-09-30T14:34:00.000-07:00

ABSOLUTE MONSTER

2008-09-30T14:32:00.000-07:00

The arrival of the new 1100 and 1100 S now increases the size of the Monster family, a family that redefines the naked motorcycle and stakes its claim as the new icon of Italian excellence. Dedicated to those who want to make the ultimate expression, this jewel of style and performance is powered by the charismatic two-valve 1100cc Desmodromic twin-cylinder engine, famous the world over for its legendary torque and acceleration.

When you choose to ride the Monster, you are not simply choosing a bike but an entire lifestyle. It is an extension of your own character, something that can be shared or kept for yourself but either way, a desire to experience the exhilaration of naked power as you ride this international motorcycling icon.

With its new single-sided aluminium swingarm, high level of componentry, race-oriented chassis and 15 years of evolution, the Monster 1100 now takes its place at the head of the Monster family.

The ‘less-is-more’ philosophy behind all Monsters underlines Ducati’s never-ending pursuit of genuinely compact, high performance motorcycles, but these new models have succeeded in being even more ‘pared down’ than their predecessors. The Monster 1100 weighs a whole 8kg (17.6lb) less than the already lightweight S2R 1000, making it by far the lightest bike in its category. Every single component has been redesigned and redeveloped in order that form would follow function. With any details detracting from the Monster concept being eliminated, the ‘less-is-more’ also means ‘less-is-Monster’. Less weight plus more torque equals fun-filled riding.
Today’s Monster family is the result of constant evolution in design and technology. The new, powerful and breathtaking top-of-the-range models boast attractive ergonomics and present pure style and charisma, while preserving the essence of the original naked bike concept.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.monster.ducati.com

MONSTER 1100
The new Monster 1100 design perfectly balances sports performance, riding pleasure and stunning looks. Its seductive line is the product of a Ducati philosophy where form and function combine to create the naked bike par excellence.
Its essential yet painstakingly perfected design is the result of the all-Italian motorcycling tradition of creativity. The new Monster 1100 is the bike for motorcyclists who know exactly what they want and whose lifestyle revolves around their love of riding.
Pure riding pleasure is guaranteed with super-light and agile handling characteristics combined with the exceptional torque of the Desmo engine and the dependable competition-level braking system. The Monster 1100 is more than just a bike, it is an extension of your own personality. The Monster’s essential design and unique sound sets it aside from all others.

CHASSIS SET-UP
In search of the perfect corner
At just 169kg (373lb), the Monster 1100 is the lightest bike in its class.
The exceptional handling, combined with 10.5kgm (75.9lb-ft) of torque from the Ducati Desmo engine, results in a pure, adrenalin-filled ride.

Every single component has been created to satisfy a Ducati rider’s needs and provide unrivalled agility and handling. That is why Ducati engineers, designers and testers have aimed for the best possible set-up and the Monster is able to ensure the best handling of all naked bikes.

With a 40mm higher ride-height than the 696, the increased ground clearance of the Monster 1100 enables impressive lean angles, letting you explore the sports side of this new naked bike to the full. The extremely lightweight aluminium alloy five Y-spoke wheels reduce unsprung weight and improve agility. The 3.50x17 front wheel is fitted with a 120/70ZR tyre while the rear 5.50x17 wheel has a 180/55ZR. The result is lightweight, precise steering that is extremely responsive at all speeds while giving the vehicle exceptional stability.

The steering lock has been improved to a considerable 64 degrees overall by using the extra distance allowed by cleverly shaped air ducts in the fuel tank covers which feed the new ten litre airbox. The sports feel of the bike is further accentuated by the new aluminium tapered handlebars.

Suspension
The 43mm fully adjustable Showa forks and Sachs rising-rate rear suspension unit, with adjustable spring pre-load and return damping, offer sufficient personalisation to suit all riding styles and provide that perfect ‘feel’. Using the proven ‘cantilever’ system, the steeply angled rear unit compresses in a movement non-linear to the rear swingarm radius, thus achieving a progressive action. This enables easy access to the spring pre-load and rebound damping adjuster, while eliminating the weight of the rocker-arm mechanism.
High performance Trellis frame
The Trellis frame, developed in conjunction with Ducati Corse and using the Desmosedici short frame concept, uses the same tube diameter and thickness as the 1098 R. The rear subframe is also derived from Desmosedici RR technology using cast aluminium to create a sturdy and yet lightweight structure for rider and passenger. The lightweight Trellis frame not only boasts unequalled rigidity, but its simple and essential lines perfectly link up the aluminium footpeg assemblies and single-sided swingarm in pure Ducati style.

Maximum control braking
The power and charisma of the new Monster 1100 can rely upon a best-in-category braking system that provides excellent, precise and controllable braking performance.
The vigorous Brembo system is the direct result of Ducati Corse racing experience, featuring radial pumps with adjustable levers feeding four-piston radial calipers which grip twin 320mm discs. The rear brake uses a 2-piston caliper operating on a 245mm disc.
Single-sided swingarm
The beautifully shaped single-sided swingarm gives the Monster a ‘tough’ look while ensuring higher rigidity, reduced weight and enhanced road holding. The swingarm is chill-cast using aluminium in its most noble form. Gravity cast and heat treated, the component achieves the best mechanical characteristics as well as reduced final weight for improved handling.

INNOVATION AND STYLE
The Monster 1100 takes its place at the top of Monster family, inheriting and developing the groundbreaking features that took the 696 to the top just weeks after its launch.
The new colour schemes have elegant combinations including grey with red frame while the racing gold wheels of the ‘S’ version accentuate the sports side of the new, naked Ducati.
HEADLIGHT: The triple-parabola headlamp uses the latest optical technology to provide a deep, wide beam which makes riding at night both easier and safer. The highly advanced construction of the assembly provides one of the most compact headlamps available.
AIRBOX AND FUEL TANK: The use of advanced moulding techniques have not only enabled greater fuel capacity but also a larger airbox. The new fuel tank now holds 15 litres (3.8 US gal) while the airbox contains a power-enhancing 10 litres of air.
MIRRORS: The rear view mirrors have been completely redesigned, making them lower, smoother and more aerodynamic while ensuring a clear view to the rear. Their design accentuates the curves and lines of the handlebars and fuel tank.
LED REAR LIGHT: The minimalist spirit of the Monster and the desire to reduce weight to a minimum were the reasons behind the choice of an LED lighting system for the rear.
GULL-WING FORK CLAMPS: Just like the race-winning Ducatis, the Monster 1100 is fitted with extremely robust fork clamps. Their ‘gull-wing’ shape design achieves exceptional torsional strength.
INSTRUMENTS: The digital instrumentation enables you to keep an eye on your Monster 1100’s performance at all times, thanks to the many viewing options offered by the on-board computer. The display, which is scrollable from the left-hand switch gear, is made even more attractive and easier to read thanks to a new white screen back lighting. Information includes: service reminders, oil temperature, air temperature, speedometer, lap time, fuel reserve warning light, low oil pressure warning light, indicators, over-rev warning light, neutral position and immobilizer. The instrumentation is also ready to accommodate the DDA (Ducati Data Analyser) system.

ENGINE
Desmodromic charisma
The Monster 1100 power unit is the legendary 1100cc, air cooled, Dual Spark L-Twin engine whose 95hp gives it that unmistakable Ducati sound. Developed for an incredibly flexible power delivery, the 1100 Desmodromic engine provides the rider with enough torque to exit the most challenging of corners. The impressive 10.5kgm (75.9lb-ft) of torque, typical of the Ducati L-Twin engines, will excite with every twist of the throttle.
The two-valve engine on the new Monster 1100 features an all-new crankcase which significantly reduces overall engine weight. They are produced using the same innovative Vacural technology that Ducati previously applied only to Supersport models such as the 848.
This method of production relies on vacuum die-casting, which improves the quality of the casting by avoiding porosity, air pockets and oxidation. This enables greater dimensional accuracy and higher ductility for the aluminium alloy. Ducati designers have drawn upon the benefits of this innovative process, redefining the conformation and thickness of the sides on the new crankcase using finite element simulations (FEM) and tests, which resulted in achieving the required reliability standards as well as attaining a significant weight reduction of 3kg (6.6lb) compared to previous versions of the 1100cc engines.
The new geometry of the crankcase, their black cylinders and the new carbon grey finish on the cam covers give the Monster 1100 engine a brand new look.
To help control the 95hp of powerful twin-cylinder engine, an entirely new engine control system has been adopted based on a combined alfa-n and speed-density strategy for carburation adjustment.
Used alongside the traditional alfa-n system, the speed-density strategy makes it possible to optimise engine carburation, in particular when using small throttle openings. This ensures a greater control over the torque delivered and improved control of harmful emissions.
The 1100 engine boasts a 98mm bore and a 71.5mm stroke, delivering 95hp at 7500rpm and an impressive torque of 10.5kgm (79.5lb-ft) at 6000rpm.
The excellent torque and power values of the most advanced air-cooled L-Twin cylinder engine ever designed by Ducati combined with the exceptional light weight of the motorcycle accentuate the riding pleasure and charisma of the new Monster 1100.

To underline the sports side of the bike, the new Monster 1100 is fitted with Ducati’s very own dry clutch.
Exhaust system
The Monster 1100 has a specially designed exhaust system which features an electronically controlled exhaust valve that enables the use of silencers similar to those of the 696. The exhaust system on the 1100 has one Lambda probe dedicated to each cylinder, enabling precise fuelling for a smoother power delivery as well as complying with current emission regulations. The routing of the exhaust system enables optimum footpeg positioning.

MONSTER 1100 S: THE BEST YOU CAN GET
The Monster 1100 S is a pure concentrate of lightness, power, design and exclusivity.
The ‘S’ features fully adjustable 43mm titanium nitride coated Öhlins forks and rising rate linkage Öhlins rear shock absorber with adjustable pre-load and return damping.
Front brake disc carriers in aluminium help reduce rotating mass, while carbon fibre cam belt covers, silencer guards and front fender reduce weight by a further 1kg (2.2lb).
The distinctive racing gold coloured 5-spoke wheels of the Monster 1100 S give it an elegant style and the same sporting look as historical Ducati racing models.

DREAM PERSONALISATION
Customise your own personal object of desire, live the dream and make your Monster a one-off with Ducati’s complete range of accessories. Whether creating a whole new look, improving performance further or simply styling your own Monster, the accessory collection is intended to make your Monster experience even more rewarding. Both versions of the new Monster 1100 already come factory-personalised with removable single seat covers and neat micro-bikini fairings. From there, interchangeable tank covers offering an easy way to personalise your Monster or carbon fibre and titanium exhausts to enhance the performance and sound of the Desmo engine, you’ll find endless ways to make your Monster special.
Performance-hungry owners can choose carbon fibre components to make the Monster even lighter or the Ducati Data Analyser (DDA) to analyse the performance data of the bike and rider. Alternatively, the extra comfortable touring seats and soft pannier bags for seat and tank are perfect for longer, more relaxed rides.
Dress to impress
With fresh and exclusive styles to suit every mood from racing to leisure, the Ducati apparel collection will look great on or off the new Monsters. The Monster line is modern and bold, it defines a new look and ensures maximum comfort. Essential and highly distinctive, Ducati apparel reflects the same Italian style and values as the new Monster.

Colour schemes
Model Fuel tank Frame Wheels
1100 Red Red Silver
1100 Silver Red Silver
1100 Gloss black Matte black Silver
1100 S Red Red Racing Gold
1100 S Pearl White Matte black Racing Gold

ST. JOHN DRIVES THE SERPENTS OUT OF IDAHO

2008-09-25T11:50:00.000-07:00

BUT FIRST A LITTLE JOKE.

A man dies and goes to heaven. He is greeted at the Pearly Gates by the ubiquitous St. Peter.

St. Peter takes the man on a golf cart tour of heaven. Numerous times a jet fighter plane buzzes the golf cart, strafes groups of supplicants and genuflecters, and shoots angels out of the heavenly sky.

The jet plane also crashes frequently. But it is immediately reborn from its exploding fireball, like an extended play in a video game. When the jet plane streaks by the golf cart the man can see the name “The Original Maverick” painted on the side.

“What kind of idiot is flying that plane around? Darn reckless and dangerous, if you ask me,” says the man to St. Peter.

“That’s just God,” replies St. Peter, “He thinks he is John McCain.”

NO MORE MISTER NICE GUY

As most readers know, the Author generally eschews overtly partisan politics unless the issues involve economics or healthcare. The Author has resisted many criticisms of McCain for his mendacity, truculence, petulance, arrogance, narcissism, and fatuous intellect. (Words, by the way, that his Vice Presidential candidate could not define nor pronounce.)

That editorial position in the Desert of the Real Economic Analysis may change, however, at least until Election Day. The stakes are too high. The Nation and the world are at too great a risk from this Republican presidential ticket.

STUNNINGLY STUPID ON ECONOMIC MATTERS. NO WONDER McCAIN WISHES TO WEASEL OUT OF THE FRIDAY NIGHT ECONOMICS DEBATE.

But don’t take the Author’s word for it. Listen to McCain and what the Mitt Romney campaign has to say:

DEUS EX MACHINA INTO THE TEMPLE OF THE MONEYCHANGERS.

McCain entertains either a delusion that his “presence” can cinch a bailout deal between congressional and administration negotiators or is angling that this patently political ploy can salvage his flagging campaign.

Leading congressional negotiator Rep. Barney Frank, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, someone who really understands economics and financial matters had this to say about McCain's machinations:

House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), a chief author of the economic rescue package, doesn't think much of John McCain's late entry into the negotiations.

"McCain is Andy Kaufman in his Mighty Mouse costume - 'Here I Come to Save the Day,'" Frank said as he left a Thursday morning caucus meeting with House Democrats, saying the Republican presidential candidate's decision to enter the mix "is not helpful."

"He hasn't been involved," Frank said. "He doesn't know anything about it."

Frank, who has been working furiously to finalize legislation granting Treasury the authority to buy hundreds of billions in distressed mortgage-related assets, believes McCain's entry "injects an...element of partisanship" into already tenuous negotiations.

"We are making very real progress," the visibly tired chairman said. "This is a stunt. I hope people will be able to ignore it. He doesn't bring anything to it."

Republicans were similarly dismissive, if not as derisive.

When asked by reporters if he wanted McCain sitting in blow-by-blow negotiations Rep. Adam Putnam, the No. 3 House Republican, simply smirked, mute for ten seconds as reporters laughed.

PALIN PRICELESSLY PUERILE

Then there is Sarah Palin, someone whose mere cellular configuration devalues both hockey and motherhood. Some believe that the McCain ploy to delay the Friday night presidential debate is designed more to delay the Palin-Biden debate. If it is the later, it would seem to make more sense.

Below is a video of Palin attempting to talk and read the wrong talking points memo at the same time.

AND SOME THOUGHT THAT LIFE IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL TAKES SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF!

WHAT ARE YOUR REASONS FOR NOT VOTING FOR BARACK OBAMA?

2008-09-20T15:14:00.000-07:00

After you have watched this video, ask yourself these questions and select your reason not to vote for Barack Obama:

1. You are a party-line Republican.

2. You are a White Democratic or Independant voter and you are a racist.

3. You are among a handful of New Mexican Hispanic voters who are racists.

4. None of the above.

If you answered #4, "None of the Above", insert your answer, along with your reasons supported by cogent argument, in the Comment section below.

RACE IS A CONSTRUCT AND BIGOTRY IS UNLAWFUL IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

IS THE SKY, OR THE BOTTOM OF THE ABYSS, THE LIMIT?

2008-09-20T14:31:00.000-07:00

COMMERCIAL PAPER FALLS OFF THE BOOKS

2008-09-20T14:28:00.000-07:00

FINANCIAL DEATH BY A THOUSAND AND ONE COMMERCIAL PAPER CUTS

2008-09-20T14:19:00.000-07:00

The Author is in a particularly busy point in what masquerades as his professional life in the Land of Underemployment. This struggle to “work harder for less” has drained away time and mental resources from reasoned questions and economic analysis.

But his brain has not shut down entirely. All week he has been asking the question: "What crashed the financial markets so fast. "Through which gate did the Vandals enter?”

The financial decline has been festering for a long time. Real estate reeling, mortgages in meltdown. Liquidity lacking. But what changed so quickly and so ominously?

Or what, as the New York Times article “Congressional Leaders Stunned by Warnings,“ spooked the Senators speechless?

From the NYT article of today (9.20.2008):

It was a room full of people who rarely hold their tongues. But as the Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, laid out the potentially devastating ramifications of the financial crisis before congressional leaders on Thursday night, there was a stunned silence at first.

Mr. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had made an urgent and unusual evening visit to Capitol Hill, and they were gathered around a conference table in the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“When you listened to him describe it you gulped," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.

As Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, put it Friday morning on the ABC program “Good Morning America,” the congressional leaders were told “that we’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system, with all the implications here at home and globally.”

TO QUOTE FRED WILLIARD, “WHA’ HAPPENED?”

John Mauldin publishes several investment newsletters. In September 19th’s Newsletter entitled “Betting on Financial Armageddon”, Mauldin swings the spotlight onto the padlocked commercial paper market. (Commercial paper is a short-term unsecured promissory note that large institutions use to borrow and lend cash to other institutions.)

Want to see in graph form how bad it got and what spooked Paulson, Bernanke and company to act so quickly? Look at these graphs from my friends at Casey Research. 30day commercial paper went to 5% from 3% a week ago. The market was literally freezing. And the amount of paper issued is in free fall. Commercial paper is the life blood of the financial and business world. Without it commerce will soon grind to a halt.

Two charts posted above this article demonstrate the precipitous decline in the commercial paper market.

The Congressional leaders quoted in the New York Times above make similar reference to a strangling credit market:

Although Mr. Schumer, Mr. Dodd and other participants declined to repeat precisely what they were told by Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Paulson, they said the two men described the financial system as effectively bound in a knot that was being pulled tighter and tighter by the day.

“You have the credit lines in America, which are the lifeblood of the economy, frozen.” Mr. Schumer said. “That hasn’t happened before. It’s a brave new world. You are in uncharted territory, but the one thing you do know is you can’t leave them frozen or the economy will just head south at a rapid rate.”

GOLDEN PARACHUTING INTO THE ABYSS

Currently, and over the next few days, the Congress and the outgoing administration will be negotiating over the terms of a financial “rescue” plan that has an undetermined chance of indeterminate success over an undefined time frame.

As the damage appears and the plan develops, the Author will continue to post, analyze, and prognosticate.

WE HOPED THAT IT WOULD NOT HAVE COME TO THIS IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

JUST A TRIFLE. AND NOT ASSOCIATED IN ANY WAY WITH THE DESERT OF THE REAL NOR ITS WEALTHY BENEFACTORS, SYNCOPHANTS AND OBESIANTS

2008-09-17T18:39:00.001-07:00

BREAKING THE BANK. BREAKING THE “BUCK”. JUST PLAIN BROKE.

2008-09-17T17:18:00.000-07:00

First, the obligatory disclaimer. The Author is short the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 stock market indices. The Author is also short oil stocks. So when these indices slide, as in the current freefall, this means another dollar in his pocket. But he digresses, smarmily. And not even the protectionist Plunge Protection Team cannot screw him out of his short gains this time!

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME THINGS WERE THIS “UNUSUAL”?

Let’s recap some of the bad economic news of late:

1. Freddy Mac, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, and Fannie Mae, the Federal National Mortgage FNMA, were recently put under Federal Housing Finance Agency conservatorship. The liabilities could cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.
2. Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy on Monday, September 15th. Tottering brokerage firm Merrill Lynch was just purchased by Bank of America. Earlier this year JPMorgan purchased the-then collapsing Bear Stearns.
3. Morgan Stanley and Wachovia are reportedly in merger talks.
4. The Federal Reserve loaned insurance giant American International Group $85 billion dollars of taxpayer money in exchange for a 79.9% stake.
5. Last summer IndyMac bank failed. Banking giant WaMu is now close to insolvency.
6. Giant money market fund Primary Fund put a seven-day freeze on redemptions (withdrawals) as its share price fell below the industry-demanded price of $1.00 per share. In money market parlance, Primary Fund has “broken the buck”. Only once in the past has a money market fund’s per-share value fallen bellow $1. This was in 1994when Denver-based Community Bankers U.S. Government Money Market Fund returned 96 cents on the dollar to investors when bad derivatives investments forced it to liquidate.

In the case of Primary Fund, it held $785 million dollars of Lehman Brothers debt which is now valueless. Primary Fund currently has 23 billion in assets. But it had 62.6 billion in assets before the run began this week.

IS SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMING?

This is an odd and somewhat unprecedented confluence of events. But not unexpected in the wake of this mortgage and liquidity crisis.

Just how bad is it, and how worse will it get? Bad, and will get worse, are the simple answers. The more definitive answers are beyond the ken of the Author.

Will banking failures be contained? Are more defaults developing? Can rising exports (due in main to the declining dollar) cushion the economy from a deep and hard bottom?

NOW, FOR A LITTLE POLITICAL PROGNOSIS…

As readers know, the Author usually abjures openly political comment. But this comment is retrospective in nature. Many historians, and many Americans, believe that President Bush is doomed to presidential ignominy. A few ask the still premature question, is he the worst ever?

His tenure is replete with foreign policy failures, domestic debacles, corruption, cronyism and abysmal economic performance. And the final days of Bush’s reign are stained with financial fractures.

The Author predicts that Milliard Fillmore will move up a notch, while Bush hovers one head above James Buchanan.

WE ARE ALWAYS ONE CHAIR SHORT IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

COME BACK, LITTLE PLUNGE PROTECTION TEAM.

2008-09-16T09:54:00.000-07:00

REREAD YOUR CLASSIC FAVORITES HERE:

With the recent market meltdown and financial freefall, many are throwing animal bones, divining goat entrails, or supplicating at the Wasilla, Alaska Assembly of God for financial comfort and market guidance.

The more cynical are asking where is that most evanescent of economic enigmas, the Plunge Protection team?

By way of background, the Author first posted on the PPT in his post almost three years ago in a post entitled “Is Uncle Sam Manipulating the Stock Market?”

Later, in the summer of 2006, the topic of the PPT came up in poolside chatter. A friend said that the PPT would intervene to prop up the then-declining market, and a commodity trader that was present concurred with the sentiment. This was addressed in the post of June 1, 2006, entitled “REMEMBER THE “PLUNGE PROTECTION TEAM”?

At the time, the Author feared that the PPT was monitoring his website for vaguely defined “sinister and unstated reasons”. But it should be noted that the Author's medical providers were "adjusting" his medication at that time for equally "sinister and unstated reasons".

AND THE PPT YET AGAIN.

The Author again addressed the PPT in a post August 24th, 2007 entitled “The Opaque Hand of the Plunge Protection Team”.

For the record, the Author is suspicious of the existence of the PPT. But there appears to be credible arguments for its genuineness. He reposts this all-time favorite to drive traffic to his blog.

NEW MEXICO IS RIGHT NEXT TO THE DESERT OF THE REAL. DOES THAT MAKE THE AUTHOR THE LIZARD KING?

RIOTOUS GROWTH, PRECIPTIOUS DECLINE. ENDING WITH SHORT, NASTY BRUTES?

2008-09-15T18:33:00.000-07:00

In a belated post from July entitled the “Last Day of June, 2008,” the Author postulated upon the post-petrochemical future.

Would this future be a nice road traversed by energy-efficient machines or a dirt path trudged by half-starved peasants? Would it be an efficient post-industrial society or a neo-dark age where blade servers must be beaten into plowshares?

Would men pull dog sleds while dogs aspire to the culture and comfort of wolfery?

ENGINES WITHOUT ENERGY. FLYWHEELS AND COBWEBS.

The “Last Day of June, 2008” quoted heavily from Kurt Cobb of Resource Insights. Cobb recalled the writings of Harrison Brown, an American geochemist that wrote in 1954 about the end of the carbon energy.

A post entitled “Which Future Should We Prepare for, Industrial or Agrarian” on the weblog Resource Insights contains a good discussion of Brown’s insight’s into the future of humankind.

In 1954 Brown published “The Challenge of Man’s Future”. In that book Brown outlined two futures of humans. One was the industrial future, the machine future, the future that we inhabit. The other future is an agrarian future, a far less comfortable future where life will be more troubled and tenuous.

Brown describes the problem this way:

Once a machine civilization has been in operation for some time, the lives of the people within the society become dependent upon the machines. The vast interlocking industrial network provides them with food, vaccines, antibiotics, and hospitals. If such a population should suddenly be deprived of a substantial fraction of its machines and forced to revert to an agrarian society, the resultant havoc would be enormous. Indeed, it is quite possible that a society within which there has been little natural selection based upon disease resistance for several generations, a society in which the people have come to depend increasingly upon surgery for repairs during early life and where there is little natural selection operating among women, relative to the ability to bear children--such a society could easily become extinct in a relatively short time following the disruption of the machine network.

YOUR FUTURE PHASED OUT...?

Browns’ future offered two trails. Post-industrial (post energy) or subsistence agricultural (masses of muscles). But can things go either way? Can carbon energy be replaced before humanity slides back into subsistence enslavement? What if cheap energy runs out and post-industrial becomes post-civilization?

Cobb writes in a recent post entitled “It’s Just a Phase”:

[L]ike other organisms humans can experience periods of riotous growth in their numbers followed by periods of decline and retrenchment. This "pulsing" is completely consistent with observed natural patterns. And, while we certainly should not abandon moral thinking, we need to be careful when we apply it to something as vast as the evolution of the human species.

In saying this, I do not mean to minimize the human suffering that may be in store for us in a future that is energy-constrained--one in which fossil fuel supplies decline, but nothing of comparable scale takes their place. I am only trying to point out what Howard Odum suggests in his book, The Prosperous Way Down, namely, that human societies are not immune to the expansions and contractions which apply to other creatures. To be more precise, industrial civilization is not a path of continuous expansion, but simply a phase of expansion that will inevitably lead one day to a phase of contraction.

THE CONCIET OF CONTINUING IMPROVEMENT? THE DENIAL OF DECLINE?

A lot has been written about the future. Nearly all of it wrong. Lots of reasons are proffered. Predictions are merely bigger and better projections of the present. Projections represent wishes yet to be realized. Otherwise rational linear projections unpredictably accelerate geometrically or are disrupted and disfigured.

Or asked more pointedly, could the future get worse and not get better? Or better for at least a few generations. The answer, evasively enough, is maybe.

A QUESTION DIFFERENTLY ASKED—A RESULT DIFFERENTLY CONSIDERED.

As Cobb reasons, maybe we should drop our present into a wider panorama.

If we could come to accept that our current industrial age is just a phase, ephemeral like all ages, neither a triumph which must be defended in its entirety at all costs, nor a mistake which must be allowed to collapse, nor a system that can be redeemed with just a few adjustments, we could learn to let go of it as it recedes without rejecting aspects of it that might prove to be instructive or useful. We could then move on to our next task, creating a new phase of human existence on planet Earth within limits we can no longer ignore.

BUILDING FOR, NOT BETTING ON, THE FUTURE IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

LIES SO BIG?

2008-09-15T18:09:00.001-07:00

From Al Stewart to Frank Zappa...

A LOOK BACK AT 9-11.

2008-09-12T12:37:00.001-07:00

The Author recently found a two-part poem that he wrote after 9-11.

He wrote it in 2001. He recently found it on an old back-up disc.

Here goes:

September 11, 2001*
By Rob Feightner©2001

The Skyscrapers that proclaimed the strength of Collective Man fell
brittle
in an all disaffirming flame.

Collapse upon collapse.
The call to an abject evil
transmitted relentless and unencrypted.

Cascades of scrolling names and passport photos.
Dense and defenceless.

The unmentionable odor of death offends the September night.

And all contentment is negated.

*Suggested by “September 1, 1939”, by W.H. Auden.

******************************************************************************
*******************************************************************************

October 11, 2001*
By Rob Feightner©2001

Black birds of prey fly atop the night.
Their tiny red eyes flash death,
Quick. Remote. From centuries away.
Screen shots, grainy and grey.
Bulllet-point lessons from a digital demi-god.
Infinite justice above,
Instant martyrdom below.

(Oblivious, as always, to the gaunt faces of ambivalent subsistence.)

Flinty eyes peer across hardened lands and shifting sands.
Recast again a base metal mythology into an idol, brittle, hollow, but
Dazzling when the believer’s stare fades to blank.
Fan smoldering enmities to ignite the browsing rabble.

And howl again that old lie:
Rejoice in the dust of the Dead.
Partake freely of the Old Ways.

(We don’t trust you with the booty of the present. We fear what you will want in the future.)

Smoke still obscures the Shining City on the Hill.
The chasm remains, the deadly dust will not settle.

The Worst. The railers and the wailers.

The worst. Fat-jowled pharisees pound the pulpit and caw on the cable channel:
“(g)od, punish us back to piety.”

The Only Slightly Better. The clue less, the talking dead heads,
the pandering pundits ask: “Why Us?”

And the tenured class, spinning infinite loops of self-cancelling logic say:
“Who can say? Better Them, better Us?”

But what of We? We!
We who must be the affirming points of light.
We who must flash out wherever we exchange our messages.

We who must stand in the Centre and bring Them and Us
back together. And hold it, as We.

The earnest work must begin.
Ignorant armies must stand down.
Clashes by night must be deliberated in the light of day.
We must all live together
or die.
Die, Us and Them, in a bang, or a whimper.

Die in the old and damned lies,
Or live together in the Transcendent Truth.

And never to hear again that most apostate of prayers:

The innocent shall do the penance.
Our god shall be loved alone.

Rob Feightner

FROM THE BLEACHED PAGES OF THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

*Suggested by “The Second Coming”, by W. B. Yeats.

HYPERMOTARD IN PEARL

2008-09-10T15:04:00.000-07:00

MULTISTRADA IN FULL PEARL LUSTRE

2008-09-10T15:00:00.000-07:00

NEWEST DUCATI "PEARLS"

2008-09-10T14:58:00.000-07:00

Bologna, 10 September – Ducati has extended its colour range by adding the stylish pearl white option to two more of its top models, the Hypermotard and Multistrada.

Following a dazzling success for the pearl white finish introduced on the Ducati 848 and Monster 696, Ducati will now offer the exciting Hypermotard 1100 and the versatile Multistrada 1100 S in this smart and exclusive livery.

For the Hypermotard 1100, pearl white creates an eye-catching and competition style contrast against its red Trellis frame and new carbon-grey finish applied to the engine outer casings.

On the ‘S’ version of the Multistrada 1100, the pearl white shade achieves a more sophisticated contrast against its ‘racing grey’ Trellis frame, the new darker carbon-grey finish of the engine outer casings and the precious carbon fibre that characterise the sporting components of this model.

Both new versions will become available during September and officially shown to the public at the International Motorcycle Show in Cologne (INTERMOT – hall 8) from 7th October.

DOES THE ROAD TO THE WHITEHOUSE LEAD THROUGH MOSCOW? OR TBILISI?

2008-09-05T21:57:00.001-07:00

OCTOBER SURPRISE OR OCTOBER REVOLUTION?

Recent American incitements in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, potential incitement in Ukraine, combined with ongoing incursions into the former Soviet Union have brought predictable and understandable Russian responses.

American and Soviet conflict and brinkmanship was the zeitgeist of the World War II generation and their spawn, the Baby Boom generation. The Cold War ended in the temperate passion of bloodless revolution.

The Soviet Union fell and the Warsaw Pact dissolved. But while politics can change the "isms" (communism, capitalism, fascism, socialism, mercantilism), only continental drift can change geopolitical reality. Countries have spheres of influence that they jealously guard. Other nations impugn upon such regions at their own peril.

NEW GAME. SAME OLD POLITICS.

Russia and the Cold War stains that remain in the old mens' trousers may figure into this presidential election of 2008. The October Surprise is the caribou in the room in this election. Will the Rove-Cheney administration gin up an incident in Georgia or Ukraine to deceive the electorate into believing that the Cold War again smolders? Will the administration crook the game to install McCain as its successor?

In two recent posts the Author has addressed the resurging Russia. In "Welcome Back to the Real World Order", the Author, quoting a piece by George Friedman, addressed the unjustified risk that the US takes in meddling in Russian affairs. In the face of failed US machinations in Georgia, a new zeitgeist emerges:

The Russians have now proven two things. First, contrary to the reality of the 1990s, they can execute a competent military operation. Second, contrary to regional perception, the United States cannot intervene. The Russian message was directed against Ukraine most of all, but the Baltics, Central Asia and Belarus are all listening. The Russians will not act precipitously. They expect all of these countries to adjust their foreign policies away from the United States and toward Russia. They are looking to see if the lesson is absorbed. At first, there will be mighty speeches and resistance. But the reality on the ground is the reality on the ground.

And in "Winning the Cold War-Losing the Oil Imports", the Author described the current reality. Russia has petro energy, and lots of it. The US uses petro energy, and doesn't have much of it. Feel the game board tilting?

ROADS TO MOSCOW. WILL THEY EXTEND TO BRUSSELS?

Yesterday was the 63rd birthday of singer-songwriter Al Stewart. One of Stewart's most memorable songs is "Roads to Moscow" from the 1973 album "Past, Present, Future". The song is about the German Invasion of Russia in World War II and Russia's eventual push back through Germany to the Elbe River.

Russia bore the brunt of Nazi blitzkrieg. Moscow nearly fell to the enemy. Many millions of Russians died in the war. It is likely that if Russia had fallen to the Nazis, the US, British and other allies could not have removed Hitler from power. The freedom of the Western World was won with Russian lives. The corpses alongside the Roads to Moscow paved the path to Nazi destruction. And world freedom.

Below is a video of "Roads to Moscow", with haunting video images.

ICE, FIRE AND EMBITTERING CYNICISM IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

A VARANUS ALBIGULARIS. SMARTER THAN AT LEAST ONE ALBUQUERQUE INVESTMENT "EXPERT"

2008-08-28T11:50:00.000-07:00

A monitor lizard. An honored native of the Desert of the Real.

REAL RETURN STRATEGIES IN TIMES WHEN "BUY AND HOLD" STRATETGIES FAIL

2008-08-28T11:16:00.000-07:00

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a repost of an article posted back in November of 2005. This post is frequently searched and read by folks all around the world. Smart folks, educated folks. Folks about to get richer. Or at least keep the Secular Bear market from taking more money from them.

It will never lose its relevance. And it is more relevant now than ever. This past Sunday in the Albuquerque Journal an article appeared in the "Money" section. It was written by reporter Winfield Quigley, a skilled and generally accurate business reporter.

The subject of the article was investing in the current economic climate. The article generally rehashed the discredited "buy and hold" stragegy. It qouted several local investment "experts". One of the so-called experts repeated the LIE (yes, the Author means LIE) that your portfolio losses are only "paper losses".

A paper loss is when you mislay a document. A real loss is when something you own drops in value. Just ask your accounant. Or ask a school child. Or ask a Varanus albigularis, a monitor lizard. Even these reptillian cousins can tell when they are a snail or two short. (Actually, they can count to six. And tell when some number of less than six snails has been removed. Rivaling or perhaps even exceeding the mathematical abilities of the Albuquerque Journal's investment "expert".)

The "expert" went on to say that you would only lose money on the investment if "you sold it now". Well, what if you tried to pledge the investment as collateral. Or had to divide it up in a property settlement. Or have it garnished or executed upon to pay a judgement. Or tried to calculate your net worth. Or tried to do anything freakin' else with the devalued investment except cry over it.

FIRE THAT INVESMENT "EXPERT" NOW AND WARN ALL YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY.

And keep reading.

WHY MAKE MONEY TODAY WHEN YOU JUST MIGHT MAKE SOME MONEY TOMMORROW?

The Author is a frequent critic of the “buy and hold” investment strategy. The buy and hold strategy involves buying stocks and/or mutual funds and holding them for long periods of times. Although the value of these investments will fluctuate, if you hold them for a relatively long period of time, they will grow in value. This investment approach, like all investment approaches, has both positive and negative aspects. Being polite, the Author will start with the positives of the “Buy and Hold Strategy”.

Positive Aspects of the “Buy and Hold” Strategy:
1. Low Transaction Costs. Since the strategy does not involve frequent purchase and sales of investments, the transaction costs are minimized. But with online brokerage services, transaction costs are usually minimal.
2. Eliminates Investor Propensity to “Buy High, Sell Low”. Many investors, because of lack of confidence or observed human nature, chase performance and buy investments at or near their peak. And they often sell when the price falls, missing the next rally.
3. Broker Convenience. Buy and Hold is simple for brokers to sell and support. The broker manages the client relationship, not the client’s money.
4. When the Markets are Bullish, the Strategy Usually works. Ask anyone who invested into the Secular Bull Markets of 1946 to 1966, or 1982 through 2000.

Negative Aspects of the “Buy and Hold” Strategy:
1. It Fails in a Secular Bear Market. As readers of this website know, the stock markets are in a Secular Bear Market cycle that began in 2000 and may run into the next decade. Secular Market cycles, Bear and Bull, run an average of 18 years. So we could be faced with low or no overall market returns through perhaps 2018.

“Buy and Hold” fails in a Secular Bear Market for two main reasons. First, you are holding a lot of stock in a Bear Market. If you tell a broker, financial planner, or mutual fund sales person that you want to invest for retirement or some other long-term goal, you will usually be advised to invest in stocks. You will be told that “over the long term”, stocks outperform other investors. That is true if your investment period includes a Secular Bull Market. But if you invested in 1966 and pulled out the money in 1982, your stocks under-performed other investments.

2. In a Secular Bear Market you are Often Stuck With the Wrong Stocks. You broker or financial advisor will also tell you that since you are a long-term investor, you should concentrate your holdings in growth stocks. Over time, these stocks will outgrow value stocks. Again, in a Secular Bull Market, growth stocks will out distance value stocks. But not in a Secular Bear Market. The investor gets the worst² (squared). He holds the wrong class of stocks in a period of time when he generally should he limiting his stock exposure.

A TRADITIONAL BUY AND HOLD STRATEGY CREATES A LOSE-LOSE SCENARIO IN THIS SECULAR BEAR MARKET.

If holding growth stocks for the long-term during this Secular Bear Market is a lose-lose proposition, what can you do that works? First, you must resign yourself that earning positive returns will take more work and still produce poorer results than you can earn during a Bull Market. Face the fact you will work harder and earn less. Think of it as your investments and your investing efforts being underemployed.

The proper strategy to employ in a Secular Bear Market is an Absolute, or Real Return Strategy. We want to make money year in and year out. We should find no comfort in the fact that our portfolio only lost 3% when the S&P 500 was down 5%. That is like winning a law suit but going broke paying legal fees.

Remember the lesson from the last post about negative returns and their effect on total returns? Negative returns are killers, especially in a Secular Bear Market. Even if you only squeak out three or four percent a year during the Bear Market, you will be making investment progress. You will be building, albeit more slowly, your wealth platform for the days when the Secular Bull Market is back. And remember, even within long Secular Bear Markets, there will be Cyclical Bull Markets that will provide you with nice returns over a short period of time.

The Author has provided some strategies in prior posts and newsletters. More cash, value stocks, high dividend stocks, and short investments when the markets are in confirmed declines. Gold and commodities may also have their place. In the next couple of posts, we will look at some ideas to move toward absolute return strategies.

FOR RIGHT NOW WE WILL HAVE TO TRUDGE ALONG IN THE RUTS IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

WELCOME (BACK?) TO THE REAL WORLD ORDER.

2008-08-23T19:17:00.000-07:00

The following piece was written by George Friedman of Stratfor. Stratfor is a private “intelligence” service. It sells global “intelligence” to businesses and government agencies.

The following was posted on Investor Insight on August 21st. The source of the post is johnmauldin@investorsinsight.com. The Author’s comments are inserted.

The most salient point to be drawn from the article is that nations consistently react to perceived threats within their geopolitical spheres of interest. And that nations that make political and military incursions into those spheres of influence invite a response that may not be measured or symmetrical.

GEORGIA’S ALWAYS ON PUTIN’S MIND, MIND, MIND…

The Russian reaction to Georgian rumblings was predictable and in direct and proximate reaction to US miscalculation and offers of illusory NATO membership. Just one of many US incursions into Russian interests. Did the neocons not think that the shoes would fall fast and simultaneously at some point of Russian pushback.

Friedman takes a somewhat balanced view of the geopolitical landscape, but falls into a couple American-centric conceits. And the persistent myth that war is cyclical. Nearly every war results from raw aggression or from issues not addressed or unfairly addressed at the conclusion of the prior conflict. But is it worth a read.

On Sept. 11, 1990, U.S. President George H. W. Bush addressed Congress. He spoke in the wake of the end of Communism in Eastern Europe, the weakening of the Soviet Union, and the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. He argued that a New World Order was emerging: "A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor, and today that new world is struggling to be born. A world quite different from the one we've known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak."

After every major, systemic war, there is the hope that this will be the war to end all wars. The idea driving it is simple. Wars are usually won by grand coalitions. The idea is that the coalition that won the war by working together will continue to work together to make the peace. Indeed, the idea is that the defeated will join the coalition and work with them to ensure the peace. This was the dream behind the Congress of Vienna, the League of Nations, the United Nations and, after the Cold War, NATO. The idea was that there would be no major issues that couldn't be handled by the victors, now joined with the defeated. That was the idea that drove George H. W. Bush as the Cold War was coming to its end.

Those with the dream are always disappointed. The victorious coalition breaks apart. The defeated refuse to play the role assigned to them. New powers emerge that were not part of the coalition. Anyone may have ideals and visions. The reality of the world order is that there are profound divergences of interest in a world where distrust is a natural and reasonable response to reality. In the end, ideals and visions vanish in a new round of geopolitical conflict.

The post-Cold War world, the New World Order, ended with authority on Aug. 8, 2008, when Russia and Georgia went to war. Certainly, this war was not in itself of major significance, and a very good case can be made that the New World Order actually started coming apart on Sept. 11, 2001. But it was on Aug. 8 that a nation-state, Russia, attacked another nation-state, Georgia, out of fear of the intentions [AND ACTIONS TAKEN BY] of a third nation-state, the United States. This causes us to begin thinking about the Real World Order.

The global system is suffering from two imbalances. First, one nation-state, the United States, remains overwhelmingly powerful, and no combination of powers are in a position to control its behavior. We are aware of all the economic problems besetting the United States, but the reality is that the American economy is larger than the next three economies combined (Japan, Germany and China. [THE US ECONOMY IS SMALLER THAN THE ECONOMY OF THE EUROPEAN UNION] The U.S. military controls all the world's oceans and effectively dominates space. Because of these factors, the United States remains politically powerful - not liked and perhaps not admired, but enormously powerful.

The second imbalance is within the United States itself. Its ground forces and the bulk of its logistical capability are committed to the Middle East, particularly Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States also is threatening on occasion to go to war with Iran, which would tie down most of its air power, and it is facing a destabilizing Pakistan. Therefore, there is this paradox: The United States is so powerful that, in the long run, it has created an imbalance in the global system. In the short run, however, it is so off balance that it has few, if any, military resources to deal with challenges elsewhere. That means that the United State s remains the dominant power in the long run but it cannot exercise that power in the short run. This creates a window of opportunity for other countries to act.

The outcome of the Iraq war can be seen emerging. The United States has succeeded in creating the foundations for a political settlement among the main Iraqi factions that will create a relatively stable government [A HIGHLY DUBIOUS CLAIM. WHEN THE IRAQI SUNNIS MOVE BEYOND “AWAKENING” TO “REASSERTING” THE FOUNDATIONS MAY SHATTER]. In that sense, U.S. policy has succeeded. But the problem the United States has is the length of time it took to achieve this success. Had it occurred in 2003, the United States would not suffer its current imbalance. But this is 2008, more than five years after the invasion. The United States never expected a war of this duration, nor did it plan for it. In order to fight the war, it had to inject a major portion of its ground fighting capability into it. The length of the war was the problem. U.S. ground forces are either in Iraq, recovering from a tour or preparing for a deployment. What strategic reserves are available are tasked into Afghanistan. Little is left over.

As Iraq pulled in the bulk of available forces, the United States did not shift its foreign policy elsewhere. For example, it remained committed to the expansion of democracy [DEMOCRACY IS A EUPHEMISM FOR A US-DOMINATED GOVERNMENT WITH AN ELECTION OR TWO BEFORE THE COUNTRY REVERTS TO WHATEVER ITS NATIVE FORM OF GOVERNANCE] in the former Soviet Union and the expansion of NATO, to include Ukraine and Georgia. From the fall of the former Soviet Union, the United States saw itself as having a dominant role in reshaping post-Soviet social and political orders, including influencing the emergence of democratic institutions and free markets. The United States saw this almost in the same light as it saw the democratization of Germany and Japan after World War II. Having defeated the Soviet Union, it now fell [READ: WAS ARROGATED BY] to the United States to reshape the societies of the successor states.

Through the 1990s, the successor states, particularly Russia, were inert. Undergoing painful internal upheaval - which foreigners saw as reform but which many Russians viewed as a foreign-inspired national catastrophe - Russia could not resist American and European involvement in regional and internal affairs. From the American point of view, the reshaping of the region - from the Kosovo war to the expansion of NATO to the deployment of U.S. Air Force bases to Central Asia - was simply a logical expansion of the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was a benign attempt to stabilize the region, enhance its prosperity and security and integrate it into the global system.

As Russia regained its balance from the chaos of the 1990s, it began to see the American and European presence in a less benign light. It was not clear to the Russians that the United States was trying to stabilize the region. Rather, it appeared to the Russians that the United States was trying to take advantage of Russian weakness to impose a new politico-military reality in which Russia was to be surrounded with nations controlled by the United States and its military system, NATO. In spite of the promise made by Bill Clinton that NATO would not expand into the former Soviet Union, the three Baltic states were admitted. The promise was not addressed. NATO was expanded because it could and Russia could do nothing about it.

From the Russian point of view, the strategic break point was Ukraine. When the Orange Revolution came to Ukraine, the American and European impression was that this was a spontaneous democratic rising. The Russian perception was that it was a well-financed CIA operation to foment an anti-Russian and pro-American uprising in Ukraine. When the United States quickly began discussing the inclusion of Ukraine in NATO, the Russians came to the conclusion that the United States intended to surround and crush the Russian Federation.

In their view, if NATO expanded into Ukraine, the Western military alliance would place Russia in a strategically untenable position. Russia would be indefensible. The American response was that it had no intention of threatening Russia. The Russian question was returned: Then why are you trying to take control of Ukraine? What other purpose would you have? The United States dismissed these Russian concerns as absurd. [IS THIS UNITED STATES “DISMISSAL” THE ULTIMATE DELUSIONAL STATE OF AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM OR UTTERLY INCOMPETENT NAIVETY?] The Russians, not regarding them as absurd at all, began planning on the assumption of a hostile United States.

If the United States had intended to break the Russian Federation once and for all, the time for that was in the 1990s, before Yeltsin was replaced by Putin and before 9/11. There was, however, no clear policy on this, because the United States felt it had all the time in the world. Superficially this was true, but only superficially.

First, the United States did not understand that the Yeltsin years were a temporary aberration and that a new government intending to stabilize Russia was inevitable. If not Putin, it would have been someone else. Second, the United States did not appreciate that it did not control the international agenda. Sept. 11, 2001, took away American options in the former Soviet Union. No only did it need Russian help in Afghanistan, but it was going to spend the next decade tied up in the Middle East. The United States had lost its room for maneuver and therefore had run out of time.

And now we come to the key point. In spite of diminishing military options outside of the Middle East, the United States did not modify its policy in the former Soviet Union. It continued to aggressively attempt to influence countries in the region, and it became particularly committed to integrating Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, in spite of the fact that both were of overwhelming strategic interest to the Russians. Ukraine dominated Russia's southwestern flank, without any natural boundaries protecting them. Georgia was seen as a constant irritant in Chechnya as well as a barrier to Russian interests in the Caucasus.

Moving rapidly to consolidate U.S. control over these and other countries in the former Soviet Union made strategic sense. Russia was weak, divided and poorly governed. It could make no response. Continuing this policy in the 2000s, when the Russians were getting stronger, more united and better governed and while U.S. forces were no longer available, made much less sense. The United States continued to irritate the Russians without having, in the short run, the forces needed to act decisively.

The American calculation was that the Russian government would not confront American interests in the region. The Russian calculation was that it could not wait to confront these interests because the United States was concluding the Iraq war and would return to its pre-eminent position in a few short years. Therefore, it made no sense for Russia to wait and it made every sense for Russia to act as quickly as possible.

The Russians were partly influenced in their timing by the success of the American surge in Iraq. If the United States continued its policy and had force to back it up, the Russians would lose their window of opportunity. Moreover, the Russians had an additional lever for use on the Americans: Iran.

The United States had been playing a complex game with Iran for years, threatening to attack while trying to negotiate. The Americans needed the Russians. Sanctions against Iran would have no meaning if the Russians did not participate, and the United States did not want Russia selling advance air defense systems to Iran. (Such systems, which American analysts had warned were quite capable, were not present in Syria on Sept. 6, 2007, when the Israelis struck a nuclear facility there.) As the United States re-evaluates the Russian military, it does not want to be surprised by Russian technology. Therefore, the more aggressive the United States becomes toward Russia, the greater the difficulties it will have in Iran. This further encouraged the Russians to act sooner rather than later.

The Russians have now proven two things. First, contrary to the reality of the 1990s, they can execute a competent military operation. Second, contrary to regional perception, the United States cannot intervene. The Russian message was directed against Ukraine most of all, but the Baltics, Central Asia and Belarus are all listening. The Russians will not act precipitously. They expect all of these countries to adjust their foreign policies away from the United States and toward Russia. They are looking to see if the lesson is absorbed. At first, there will be mighty speeches and resistance. But the reality on the ground is the reality on the ground.

We would expect the Russians to get traction. But if they don't, the Russians are aware that they are, in the long run, much weaker than the Americans, and that they will retain their regional position of strength only while the United States is off balance in Iraq. If the lesson isn't absorbed, the Russians are capable of more direct action, and they will not let this chance slip away. This is their chance to redefine their sphere of influence. They will not get another.

The other country that is watching and thinking is Iran. Iran had accepted the idea that it had lost the chance to dominate Iraq. It had also accepted the idea that it would have to bargain away its nuclear capability or lose it. The Iranians are now wondering if this is still true and are undoubtedly pinging the Russians about the situation. Meanwhile, the Russians are waiting for the Americans to calm down and get serious. If the Americans plan to take meaningful action against them, they will respond in Iran. But the Americans have no meaningful actions they can take; they need to get out of Iraq and they need help against Iran. The quid pro quo here is obvious. The United States acquiesces to Russian actions (which it can't do anything about), while the Russians cooperate with the United States against Iran getting nuclear weapons (something Russia does not want to see). [THE GREAT GAME MAY BE BACK. AND AS A SIDENOTE, THE AUTHOR HAS OBSERVED THAT LONG PERIODS OF THE ABSENCE OF MAJOR WARS ARE PERIODS WHEN A BALANCE OF POWER EXISTS AMONG MAJOR NATION.]

One of the interesting concepts of the New World Order was that all serious countries would want to participate in it and that the only threat would come from rogue states and nonstate actors such as North Korea and al Qaeda. Serious analysts argued that conflict between nation-states would not be important in the 21st century. There will certainly be rogue states and nonstate actors, but the 21st century will be no different than any other century. On Aug. 8, the Russians invited us all to the Real World Order.

WORTH A DECENT READ AND A FEW THOUGHTS AS NEW DAYS DAWN IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

IF THE COUNTRY WERE FOR SALE, WHAT WOULD IT COST?

2008-07-16T20:25:00.000-07:00

The Author came across an interesting article on MSN Money entitled “How Much Oil it’d Take to Buy the US”. Not as much as one might imagine.

As of March of 2008, the combined oil reserves of Iran and Saudi Arabia would buy the country. This estimate is based upon oil costing $140.00 per barrel and the net worth of the United States at 56 trillion dollars.

Oil has fallen from $140 per barrel to 134.82 (as of July 16th). But readers can get the general message. The article contains a graph (reproduced below) that begins in 1970 when the household worth of the US was 3.4 trillion and the price of oil $3.18 per barrel. At that time it would have taken 1.1 trillion barrels of oil to buy the US.

Household net worth/ Price of oil/ Barrels to buy America

1970 $3.4 trillion/ $3.18/ 1.1 trillion
1975 $5.1 trillion/ $7.67/ 670.3 billion
1980 $9.5 trillion/ $21.59/ 438.6 billion
1985 $14.2 trillion/ $24.09/ 589.7 billion
1990 $20.3 trillion/ $20.03/ 1.1 trillion
1995 $27.7 trillion/ $14.62/ 1.9 trillion
1998 $37.4 trillion/ $11.18/ 3.3 trillion
2004 $48.1 trillion/ $42.00/ 1.1 trillion
2007 $57.7 trillion/ $120.00/ 481 billion
2008 $56 trillion/ $140.00/ 400 billion

A BRUTAL CORRELATION. A SAD STATE OF THE NATION.

Three salients can be drawn from the graph:

1. Relative to the price of oil, the country is at a bargain basis price.
2. Economic growth has been anemic over the last four years.
3. If oil keeps rising and the economy keeps underperforming (remains at a net worth of 56 trillion), Canada with its 179 billion barrels could buy the US if oil hits $313 per barrel (5.6 (12) /1.79 (10) = 3.13 (2) or $313 per barrel). Oh, Canada! Saudi Arabia with 560 billion barrels owns the joint at only $215 per barrel (5.6 (12)/2.6(10) = 2.15 (2) or $215 per barrel)

The lesson is clear. Ceteris Paribus, America will be worth less and less in a world where oil prices accelerate. The solutions lie in slashing oil use, more efficient use of the oil remaining, and a shift to alternative and renewable energy sources with all deliberate dispatch.

IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL, CHANGE AIN’T LOOKING FOR FRIENDS. CHANGE CALLS THE TUNE AND WE DANCE TO IT (Paraphrasing Al Swearengen, a Character in “Deadwood).

JUKE BOX JOHN McCAIN? PUT IN A QUARTER AND HE WILL CHANGE HIS TUNE.

2008-07-15T09:05:00.000-07:00

This blog rarely addresses partisan politics unless they relate directly to an economic issue. However, the endless stream of contradictory statements from John McCain must be highlighted. If only to provide context for his economic pronouncements and proposals.

Yesterday John McCain addressed an Hispanic group, The National Council of La Raza. In response to an audience member's question, he said that he would support the DREAM Act(Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act), which gives undocumented young people a chance to earn U.S. citizenship by going to college or enlisting in the military.

Sounds reasonable. And he said it on camera.

MEMORY LAPSE OR SERIAL MENDACITY? OR JUST A MEDIA PASS FOR A PREVARICATOR?

Yet on October 25, 2007, McCain told the National Review that he opposed the DREAM Act. Live, on audio tape.

THE SPURIOUS TALK EXPRESS. THE MAVERICK OF THE MADE-UP.

This from the liberal blog The Carpetbagger Report in response to the McCain on of at least 60 McCain "flip-flops":

The man is just shamelessly dishonest. McCain co-sponsored the Dream Act, then refused to vote for it, then promised to oppose it, then promised to support it. And just to add a little irony to the whole situation, McCain then concluded, “I do ask for your trust.”

Now, under normal circumstances, one might wonder whether McCain will be pressed to explain himself today, maybe with a clarifying press conference. But that’s almost certainly not going to happen.

Part of this, I suspect, is because the media just prefers to go easy on McCain. But the other part of the problem is, I have a hunch reporters aren’t following the race as closely as we are. That may sound silly — they are paid media professionals on the campaign beat — but I genuinely believe they’re not especially well informed.

When I heard McCain vow to support the Dream Act, I immediately knew he was abandoning a pledge he’d made during the primaries. When the reporters who travel with McCain heard it, did they notice the same problem? Do they even know what the Dream Act is?

It’s one reason, I believe, that McCain is so reckless with his rhetoric. He not only assumes the media has given up on holding him accountable, but he also assumes reporters aren’t quite sharp enough to keep track of minor policy details. On this, McCain is probably right.

And what if I’m wrong? What if campaign reporters really do know what the Dream Act is, and knew immediately that McCain is making completely contradictory promises to different groups at different times? That would speak to reporters’ competence — but it wouldn’t explain why not one of them thought to mention it in their reports on McCain’s La Raza appearance.

THE DESERT OF THE REAL REQUIRES RIGOROUS HONESTY!

EXPAND YOUR MIND. ENTERTAIN YOURSELF. AND LIKE THE BEER AT THE DELTA HOUSE, IT "DON'T COST NUTHIN."

2008-07-14T15:43:00.001-07:00

Like most readers of this blog, the Author is a member of the TV generation.

But long before the cathode ray tube turned generations of humans into Epsilon Semi-Morons, there was radio. Radio has had a long and varied life. The first wireless purveyor of news, weather, sports, music and entertainment. And it still does that today.

A popular feature of radio was entertainment programming. Soap operas, adventures, dramas, comedies, and serials filled the airwaves and living rooms from the 1930s to the 1950s.

RADIO BROADCASTS-LIKE BOOKS WITHOUT HAVING TO READ THE WORDS.

From 1974 through 1982, CBS radio produced the eponymously-titled "CBS Radio Mysteries". They were three-act one hour radio programs broadcast every weeknight on CBS stations around the country.

The target audience was an older demographic that grew up with radio. But CBS discovered that the shows pulled in younger listeners as well. Most of the programs were traditional mysteries. But some were versions of classic horror stories such as Dracula, Frankenstein, and the works of Edgar Allan Poe and other horror writers.

BETTER THAN A BOOK ON TAPE.

The Author discovered these CBS Radio mysteries in the late 1980s when driving home after working late. WBBM in Chicago rebroadcast the shows. And he got hooked.

WBBM stopped broadcasting these mysteries in the early 1990s and the Author forgot about them. However, a couple of months ago he stumbled upon a website that has MP3 versions of the entire series, all 1,399 episodes.

The shows are indexed in the order that they were broadcast. The sounds quality is a little degraded on some of them, but they are still listenable.

Some also contain the advertisements and news lead-ins from their original broadcasts. Broadcasts from 1974 feature public service ads about the "energy crisis" and news leads reporting the Nixon impeachment hearings.

So turn off the lights and turn up your PC speakers for a good time on a stormy night.

ALWAYS GETTING YOUR MONEY'S WORTH IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

OFF-SHORE RECOVERABLE OIL ESTIMATES FROM THE US EIA.

2008-07-13T13:14:00.000-07:00

OFF-SHORE OIL PRODUCTION. WITH AND WITHOUT THE COASTAL AREAS.

2008-07-13T13:07:00.000-07:00

OFF-SHORE OIL DRILLING. PRICE RELIEF OR POLITICAL PAYOFF?

2008-07-13T12:50:00.000-07:00

Presidential Candidate John McCain has promised to lift the moratorium on off-shore drilling in areas that are currently unavailable to leasing and exploration. Almost a month ago, on June 16th, McCain made this statement:

Tomorrow I’ll call for lifting the federal moratorium for states that choose to permit exploration,” McCain said. “I think that this and perhaps providing additional incentives for states to permit exploration off their coasts would be very helpful in the short term in resolving our energy crisis.

The Author was suspicious of McCain’s claim that opening up areas that would be many years away from very meager production would provide “short term” relief to the “energy crisis”.

Oil markets did not react to this claim. Prices have continued to climb since mid-June. Could markets know more about oil supply and demand than John McCain?

So the Author did what most journalists (not including the Pulitzer Prize wining editor of the Advance-Leader, Bob Buttgen) and nearly all American news organizations stopped doing years ago. Research the politician’s claims and report on its veracity.

WHAT’S THE SCOOP?

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) stated in a report from 2006 entitled “Impacts of Increased Access to Oil and Natural Gas Resources in the Lower 48 Federal Outer Continental Shelf” that:

The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions [areas currently off limits] would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030.

Further, it is likely that the additional supply, based upon mean estimates, is 8.2 billion barrels, while there is currently 40.92 billion barrels in areas currently available for leasing. (There is estimated to be 18.17 billion barrels available in all off-limit areas. However, much of that oil is in coastal California. And California leaders, including Governor Schwarzenegger, have indicated that they will not permit these areas to be exploited.)

Two salient points come out of this analysis.

1. Any supply increase is 22 years away.
2. The supply is to be considered relative to DOMESTIC oil production, not WORLD oil production.

World oil production is currently at 85 million barrels per day. What production will be in 2030 is subject to much dispute. If 2030 oil production is 100 million barrels per day, then, then 8.2 billion barrels is 82 days of world supply. If world oil production is 50 billion barrels per day (a possible post-peak oil figure), then it is 164 days of world supply.

WHAT’S THE RUSH WHEN THERE IS LOTS MORE LYING IDLE?

Commentators have noted that there are many areas available for leasing and development that are not being utilized. The EIA report confirms this. There are 40.92 billion barrels in areas available for leasing, 5 times that available in the areas off limits. (See the graph above.)

This post should not be interpreted to mean that these areas off limits should never be developed. But any consideration of these areas should take into consideration several factors, which include:

1. The extent to which currently available areas have been leased and developed.
2. The potential for spills which would cause substantial environmental and economic damage to coastal areas.
3. A requirement that developers pay adequate royalties and lease payments to the taxpayers.

This third item should bear special attention. Oil companies would like to tie up these areas on favorable terms. What better time than in an election season where energy issues are prominent?

Misinformation for short-term political gain should remain off limits, just as the areas should remain off limits absent compelling and accurate rationale.

DRILLING FOR VOTES IS VERBOTEN IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

BLESSED ARE THE VEGETARIANS, THE PEACEMAKERS

2008-07-10T16:15:00.000-07:00

Matthew 5:9 - Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

The Only Diet for a Peacemaker Is a Vegetarian Diet

by John Dear

In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., last week to speak at the National Convention of Unitarian Universalists, I met my old friend Bruce Friedrich. We spent eight memorable months together in a tiny jail cell, along with Philip Berrigan, for our 1993 Plowshares disarmament action. A former Catholic Worker, Bruce is now one of the leaders of PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. He gave a brilliant workshop on the importance of becoming a vegetarian, something I urge everyone to consider.

I became a vegetarian with a few other Jesuit novices shortly after I entered the Jesuits in 1982 and later wrote a pamphlet for PETA, “Christianity and Vegetarianism.” I based my decision solely on Francis Moore Lappe’s classic work, Diet for a Small Planet, a book that I think everyone should read.

In it, Lappe, the great advocate for the hungry, makes an unassailable case that vegetarianism is the best way to eliminate world hunger and to sustain the environment.

At first glance, we wonder how that could be. But it’s undisputable. A hundred million tons of grain go yearly for biofuel — a morally questionable use of foodstuffs. But more than seven times that much — some 760 million tons according to the United Nations — go into the bellies of farmed animals, this to fatten them up so that sirloin, hamburgers and pork roast grace the tables of First-World people. It boils down to this. Over 70 percent of U.S. grain and 80 percent of corn is fed to farm animals rather than people.

Conscience dictates that the grain should stay where it is grown, from South America to Africa. And it should be fed to the local malnourished poor, not to the chickens destined for our KFC buckets. The environmental think-tank, the World Watch Institute, sums it up: “Continued growth in meat output is dependent on feeding grain to animals, creating competition for grain between affluent meat eaters and the world’s poor.”

Meanwhile, eating meat causes almost 40 percent more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, and planes in the world combined. (The world’s 1.3 billion cattle release tons of methane into the atmosphere, and hundreds of millions tons of CO2 are released by burning forests due to dry conditions as in California or due to purposeful burns to create cow pastures in Latin America.)

And global warming isn’t the only environmental issue. Almost 40 years ago, Lappe spelled out the environmental consequences of eating meat in stark relief. But more recently, her analysis received some high-power validation. The United Nations recently published “Livestock’s Long Shadow.” It concludes that eating meat is “one of the most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” And it insists that the meat industry “should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity.”

Much of our potable water and much of our fossil fuel supply is wasted on rearing chickens, pigs, and other animals for humans to eat. And over 50 percent of forests worldwide have been cleared to raise or feed livestock for meat-eating. (A recent protest in Brazil denounced Kentucky Fried Chicken for clearing thousands of acres of untouched Amazon rain forest for chicken feed.)

As a Christian, I became a vegetarian because of the Gospel mandate of Matthew 25, “Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me” — because I do not want my appetites to contribute to the ongoing oppression of the world’s starving masses. As a Catholic and Jesuit, I want somehow to side with the poor and hungry.

But another issue arises, too, over the decades, I’ve learned that our appetite for meat leads to cruelty to animals — chickens pressed wing-to-wing into filthy sheds and de-beaked, for example. And since I’ve always espoused creative nonviolence as the fundamental Gospel value, my vegetarianism helps me not to participate in the vicious torture and destruction of billions of cows, chickens, and so many other creatures.

The chickens never raise families, root in the soil, build nests, or do anything natural. Often they are tormented or tortured before they are slowly killed, as PETA has repeatedly documented in its undercover investigations — for your chicken dinner or hamburger. (All this is documented on a video narrated by Alec Baldwin, at www.Meat.org.)

Animals have feelings, they suffer; they have needs and desires. They were created by God to raise their families and breath fresh air; and if chickens to peck in the grass, if pigs to root in the soil. Today’s farms don’t let them do anything God designed them to do. Animal scientists attest that farm animals have personalities and interests, that chickens and pigs are smarter than dogs and cats.

Animals figure in the Gospels. They brim with lovely, respectful images of animals. Clearly Jesus was familiar with animals, and cared for them, as he urged us to look at the birds of the air or be his sheep. He even identified himself as “a mother hen who longs to gather us under her wings.”

And animals figure in the Hebrew Bible. Isaiah 11, a vision of reconciled creation, dreams of a day when “the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion shall browse together with a little child to guide them. The cow and the beast shall be neighbors, together their young shall rest. The lion shall eat hay like the ox. The baby shall play by the cobra’s den and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair. There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the God of peace, as water covers the sea.” (Isaiah 11:1-9)

A vision of a nonviolent world, all creatures nonviolent, children safely at play with them, and no violence anywhere. That is the peaceful vision of creation that we are called to pursue — in every aspect of our lives, from the jobs we hold, to our use of gasoline and alternative energies, to what we eat and wear, say and do.

I admire the Bible’s greatest vegetarian, Daniel, the nonviolent resister who refused to defile himself by eating the king’s meat. He and three friends became healthier than anyone else through their vegetarian diet. And they excelled in wisdom, for “God rewards them with knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom.”

In his workshop at the Unitarian Universalists convention, Bruce added another beautiful image, the Garden of Eden. The Bible opens with a vision of paradise where God, animals, and humans recreate in peace together. Clearly, the Bible calls us to return to that paradise.

And Bruce reminded us that from the beginning we are directed to be vegetarians. Genesis 1:29 says, “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant all over the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food.”

Biblical images and justice issues aside, there are medical reasons to stop eating meat. Vegetarian diets help keep our weight down, support a lifetime of good health and provide protection against numerous diseases, including the U.S.’s three biggest killers: heart disease, cancer and strokes.

Dr. Dean Ornish and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn both have 100 percent success in preventing and reversing heart disease using a vegan diet. Meanwhile, Dr. T. Colin Campbell writes that one of the leading causes of human cancer is animal protein. More, vegetarians are also less prone to developing adult-onset diabetes. And then we have to contend with the spread of Mad Cow disease and Avian influenza. One could almost argue that the human body is not designed for meat-eating.

But for me being vegetarian boils down to peacemaking. If you want to be a peacemaker, Bruce said, reflecting the sentiments of Leo Tolstoy, you will want to eat as peaceful a diet as possible. “Vegetarianism,” Tolstoy wrote, “is the taproot of humanitarianism.” Other great humanitarians like Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer and Thich Nhat Hanh agree. The only diet for a peacemaker is a vegetarian diet.

“Not to hurt our humble brethren, the animals,” St. Francis of Assisi said, “is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission: to be of service to them whenever they require it. If you have people who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity,” he continued, “you will have people who will deal likewise with other people.”

So it was good to visit with my friend Bruce, and hear once again the wisdom of vegetarianism. It’s a key ingredient in the new life of peace, compassion and nonviolence.

ANIMALS DO NOT DIE TO FEED HUMANS IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

THE LAST DAY OF JUNE, 2008. JUST A FEW DAYS LATE, HARDLY A NANOSECOND IN DEEP TIME.

2008-07-10T11:38:00.000-07:00

The Author had intended to write this post closer to June 30th, but, well, did not. Good thing, because he stumbled upon a few interesting articles that made the delay worth the letdown.

In 1973 singer-songwriter Al Stewart released the album “Past, Present, Future.” The album charted a new direction for Stewart as all of the songs on the album dealt with historical characters and historical events. Much of Stewart’s later work also addresses historical themes.

One of the songs on the album is "The Last Day of June 1934." A pivotal event occurred on and around that day. The event has since become known as the “Night of the Long Knives.”

In a thorough and brutal consolidation of power, Hitler murdered the leaders of the SA (“Brownshirts”) and obtained the tacit approval of these murders and purges from the German Army and the German political leadership.

Stewart’s song focuses on the events, including the murder of SA leader Ernst Rohm, and on the obliviousness of Europe to the event that launched the Nazis on their reign of butchery and terror.

The entire lyrics of the song are here. Some relevant words are set out below:

And a lost wind of summer blows into the streets
Past the tramps in the alleyways, the rich in silk sheets
And Europe lies sleeping,
you feel her heartbeats through the floor
On the last day of June 19...

On the night that Ernst Roehm died voices rang out
In the rolling Bavarian hills
And swept through the cities and danced in the gutters
Grown strong like the joining of wills

I sit here now by the banks of the Rhine
Dipping my feet in the cold stream of time
And I know I'm a dreamer, I know I'm out of line
With the people I see everywhere

The couples pass by me, they're looking so good
Their arms round each other, they head for the woods
They don't care who Ernst Roehm was, no reason they should
Just a shadow that hangs in the air

But I thought I saw him cross over the hill
With a whole ghostly army of men at his heel
And struck in the moment it seemed to be real like before
On the last day of June 1934

Oh to have been prescient on the last day of June 1934.

ON THE LAST DAY OF JUNE 1954.

Harrison Brown was an American geochemist and polymath involved in the isolation of plutonium for the first production of nuclear weapons. And he keenly understood the nature and the limitations of the future of humankind.

A post entitled “Which Future Should We Prepare for, Industrial or Agrarian” on the weblog Resource Insights contains a good discussion of Brown’s insight’s into the future of humankind.

In 1954 Brown published “The Challenge of Man’s Future”. In that book Brown outlined two futures of humans. One was the industrial future, the machine future, the future that we inhabit. The other future is an agrarian future, a far less comfortable future where life will be more troubled and tenuous.

Kurt Cobb of Resource Insights states:

Brown's views may seem strange to the modern ear accustomed as it is to hearing how thoroughly we have subdued nature through technology. But even back in 1954 it was already well-known in scientific circles that 1) we would one day run short of finite fossil fuels, 2) we were working our way from high-grade metal ores down to low-grade ores, and 3) industrial society would ultimately be faced with the task of obtaining its required metals and other basic resources from nothing more than air, rock and seawater. The key to making a successful transition, Brown reasoned, would be finding the necessary energy since if one has enough energy, getting needed materials from the ultra-low-grade resources of air, rock and seawater would be feasible.

GEORGE JETSON AND CHARLES DARWIN KNOW WHAT BROWN IS TALKING ABOUT.

Brown describes the problem this way:

Once a machine civilization has been in operation for some time, the lives of the people within the society become dependent upon the machines. The vast interlocking industrial network provides them with food, vaccines, antibiotics, and hospitals. If such a population should suddenly be deprived of a substantial fraction of its machines and forced to revert to an agrarian society, the resultant havoc would be enormous. Indeed, it is quite possible that a society within which there has been little natural selection based upon disease resistance for several generations, a society in which the people have come to depend increasingly upon surgery for repairs during early life and where there is little natural selection operating among women, relative to the ability to bear children--such a society could easily become extinct in a relatively short time following the disruption of the machine network.

AH, POST-APOCALYPSE AMERICA. THE ULTIMATE FRONTIER. THE ULTIMATE TEST FOR RUGGED INDIVIDUALISTS LIKE PHIL GRAMM AND RICHARD MELLON-SCAIFE.

Brown is basically saying that if the world goes Neanderthal, the world will need Neanderthals. Tiger Woods, Bill Gates, Rush Limbaugh and Arriana Huffington would likely be less successful in the neo-Agrarian world than Amazon hunter-gathers and homeless dudes that can live in boxes and scrounge meals from dumpsters.

Organisms evolve to succeed in the world that they are faced with. Polar bears need ice and seals. Venus Fly-Traps and Pitcher Plants need bogs. Prairies Chickens need prairies.

A hedge fund manager, with no hedge fun to manage and no penthouse to live in, has little ability to survive on the Pampas or the Polar ice shelf. Most or all of her kids would die of exposure or childhood disease.

SO MUCH LAND. SO FEW HORTICULTURISTS. SO LITTLE FOOD.

Modern agriculture has produced remarkably efficient organisms (corn, wheat, soybeans, livestock) that produce bumper harvests at relatively low input costs. That output comes at a perilous price. The organisms are breed for performance, not persistence. They grow fine in a narrow band of parameters. And as hybrids, they cannot even reproduce.

But throw a few exogenous events at these thoroughbreds and they fade and die. Drought, disease, blight, insects and inclement weather wreak havoc on these organisms. They lack the genetic diversity that their ancestors, wild counterparts, and garden varieties possess. Indian corn and heirloom vegetables are a couple of examples. Indian corn was grown for many thousands of years and in its long genetic life developed genes that allowed it to survive many threats. The same with heirloom vegetables. They retain a genetic diversity that makes them better equipped to survive in environments that would shred Pioneer’s finest seed corn.

THE LAST DAY OF JUNE 2034.

Brown’s thesis is not without a way out. The cheap but finite oil and coal that powered the machine age that he lived in must be replaced with something plentiful and cheap. And the raw materials that drove the machine age must be recycled.

Brown’s prescription was nuclear and/or solar power. Nuclear power never lived up to its “Atomic Age” promise due to the problems of waste storage and the potential for toxic release. It still has a place, and the time frame for new plant construction will fit in with the long-term transition to non-hydrocarbon power sources.

Solar power offers a better alternative. But it needs incentives to produce and to direct more capital toward development until it becomes an economically viable alternative source. Solar power WILL become a cheaper alternative to oil, coal and gas. But the question of WHEN is draped in uncertainty. That uncertainty could damn millions, perhaps billions.

Brown calls the switchover the “rate of conversion” problem:

Continuance of vigorous machine culture beyond another century or so is clearly dependent upon the development and utilization of atomic or solar power. If these sources of newly applied energy are to be available in time, the basic research and development must be pursued actively during the coming decades. And even if the knowledge is available soon enough, it is quite possible that the political and economic situation in the world at the time the new transition becomes necessary will be of such a nature that the transition will be effectively hindered. Time and again during the course of human history we have seen advance halted by unfavorable political and economic conditions. We have seen societies in which technical knowledge and resources were both present, but where adequate capital and organization were not in existence and could not be accumulated sufficiently rapidly. [Emphasis Added.]

We will have a better idea how the road to the last day of June 2134 will be traveled on the last day of June 2034. It can be a nice road traversed with efficiently powered vechicles or a dirt path trudged by hungry peasants.

There is one huge difference between the Last Day of June 1934 and the last day of June 2034. On the last day of June 2034 we will have some idea of what the future may hold.

THE LAST DAY OF JUNE, A DAY LIKE ANY OTHER DAY IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

CRUDE OIL PRICES. 1970-2007

2008-07-06T13:35:00.000-07:00

DO THE TERRORISTS HATE US LESS NOW THAT WE ARE PAYING $144 FOR A BARREL OF OIL?

2008-07-06T13:25:00.000-07:00

OSAMA BIN LADEN. TERRORIST, OIL ANALYST, PROPHET OF PROFIT?

AUTHOR’S NOTE: SMARM ALERT. BUT THIS TOPIC DESERVES SMARMINESS.

In 1998, Bin Laden stated that his target price for a barrel of oil was $144. As of July 3rd, Light Sweet Crude was trading for $145.29. Brent Crude was trading at $144.42. So we have hit, and even surpassed, Osama’s ignominious target.

Bin Laden’s ability to ramp up the price of oil from $11 dollars per barrel in 1998 to today’s price is subject to serious suspicion. It would have seemed that oil prices would have spiked after the 9/11 attacks. However, oil remained steady at around $25 per barrel (in 2006 dollars) in 2001 and 2002. This was a period of recession and economic recovery for the US and Western Europe.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED?

The relentless rise in oil prices began about the time of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. The invasion caused a massive disruption of Iraqi oil production. And that event coincided with the generally unabated increase in oil prices.

But the Bush/Cheney debacle was only partly responsible for the oil price leap. Growing demand from China and Asia ramped up prices.

SO WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THE PRICE OF TEA IN CHINA?

To the Author’s mild surprise, quite a bit.

The Author began this post expecting to find the nearly vertical movement in oil prices to have begun after 9/11. To his surprise, it did not. The hockey stick blade began in mid-2002. The rise has continued, generally unabated.

We can take some small comfort in the fact that it takes market forces to move the price of oil. The 9/11 attacks, horrendous as they were, had no meaningful oil price impact.

The same forces of supply and demand operate now to price the lifeblood of the American economy. We should pay more attention to life and blood as we move into the last days of the hydro-carbon economy. And remember that the lives and blood of Americans and Iraqis ultimately had little effect on the price of a barrel of Texas Tea.

THE DESERT OF THE REAL IS SOLAR POWERED!

MORE OIL TALK IN TIMES OF LESS OIL

2008-07-05T14:46:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers:

First, the Author would like to thank you for visiting the trifle that is the Desert of the Real Economic Analysis Blog. The Author has, with some down periods because of work, sloth, decrepitude and other reasons, been writing this blog for almost three years, an eternity in Moore's Law Years.

The blog started as an investment, economics and finance blog supplementing the Author's Desert of the Real Investment Newsletter. The Investment Letter was subsumed by the blog, however.

The focus of the blog has shifted a bit away from investment to economics and finance. With a little motorcycle and general grunge content thrown in. Lately, posts have addressed oil and the multitude of issues involved in the skyrocketing price and the future outlook for world energy development (of all types).

This trend should continue. First and foremost, the Author wants to make a little money from the rising price of oil. Secondly, he wants to understand what in the heck is going on. And finally, he wishes to share that information and knowledge with his readers.

A JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MISSTEPS BEGINS WITH THE FIRST STUMBLE IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

THE FIFTH OF JULY. THE DAY "PATRIOTS" CAN RETURN TO WHATEVER IT IS THAT THEY DO

2008-07-05T08:12:00.000-07:00

This from Ambrose Bierce:

PATRIOT, n.
One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.

PATRIOTISM, n.
Combustible rubbish read to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.

In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.

AMBROSE BIERCE HAS AN UNMARKED GRAVE IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

"FOURTH OF JULY" GALAXIE 500

2008-07-04T16:23:00.000-07:00

The Author will not be listening to much music on this 232nd Anniversary of the Declaration of Indpendance. He will instead read, blog, and eat a couple of meatless hot dogs. And contemplate life in the Desert of The Real.

He will, however, link you to a YouTube Video of "Fourth of July" by Galaxie 500, a 1980s band.

WHY, BUT NOT WHEN, OIL PRICES MAY FALL. BUT FIRST A POLEMIC AND THE OBLIGATORY HARD LESSONS

2008-07-04T09:29:00.000-07:00

Today is the 232nd Anniversary of American Independence. Independence is a word that is frequently bandied about in the context of “energy independence”. It is a canard, a glittering generality that is trotted out to deflect attention from real remedies to gluttonous and profligate American energy consumption.

“Energy Independence” contains scents of American Exceptionalism, Nativism and “good old” American Know-How and Yankee Ingenuity. The two former are delusional, the later two traits perhaps not enough.

GOT A LIGHT?

The world still lives by the campfire. Most of the energy produced is the result of the combustion of carbon. For hundreds of thousands of years the source of combustion was sticks and logs. Trees, the most available resource, were burned for warmth and later the smelting of metals and other productive uses.

But while humans were chopping wood above ground, a neater trick was going on below ground. Hundreds of millions of year’s worth of trees, plants and carcasses were being condensed and processed into coal, natural gas and oil.

Humans began using these sources in earnest when the Industrial Revolution began in the 1830s. First coal. Later, around the beginning of the 20th century, oil. In massive quantities with a slakeless thirst.

SO MUCH ENERGY. SO LITTLE TIME.

How much longer will the campfire keep burning? Oil? Another 30 years? Another 50 years? Another 100 maybe?

When will coal run out? Are 100 years left? 200? 500?

Half a billion years, perhaps more, went into the production of coal, natural gas and oil. 500,000,000 years. How many years have and will go into the extraction and depletion of these resources? 200? 300? 500? Maybe a 1000?

And how many human generations feasted upon the extraction and depletion of these resources. Six? 10? 20?

In .000002% of the time it took to accumulate this energy to be consumed, it will be depleted.

NOW, A LITTLE GOOD (?) NEWS…

Oil is a commodity and responds to the basic laws of economics and commodity pricing. So what will the laws provide?

An article on Yahoo Finance from June entitled “Why the Oil Boom will Eventually Bust” may promise temporary relief, but no long-term remedy, to increasing oil prices.

The price paid for commodities is generally the cost of the “last bushel” harvested or the “last barrel” out of the well. As the article states:

In a normal oil market, the cost of producing the last, most expensive barrel of oil needed to satisfy worldwide demand sets the price for every barrel the world over. Other auction commodity markets work much the same way.

So even if Saudi Arabia produces at $4 a barrel, if the final, multi-millionth barrel required to heat houses and run cars costs $50, and is produced, for argument's sake, at a flagging field in West Texas, the world price is $50. That's what economists call the equilibrium price: It's where the price that customers are willing to pay meets the production cost, including a cushion, naturally, for profit or "the cost of capital."

So what is going “wrong”?

A big swath of the market isn't really paying that $125 [AUTHOR’S NOTE: Currently $140]a barrel number you hear about seemingly every hour. In China, India and the Middle East, governments are heavily subsidizing oil for their consumers and corporations, leading to rampant over-consumption - and driving up prices even more.

And as a side note, the US currently “subsidizes”, in a functional sense, the price of oil by not subjecting it to the taxes that most Western nations impose to curtail consumption and cross-subsidize other transportation modes.

SUPPLY LAGS, BUT IT TAGS ALONG.

Almost exactly the same thing happened in the housing market. And both housing and oil supply react to a surge in demand with a long lag. In housing, the lag is caused by restrictive zoning and development laws, especially in coastal markets like California and Florida.

So when the economy roared back in 2002 and 2003, builders couldn't turn out homes fast enough for buyers armed with those cheap mortgages. As a result, prices spiked. They no longer bore any relation to the actual cost of buying and improving land, or constructing and marketing a new house (at some reasonable profit margin). Instead, frenzied buyers were setting the price.

Because builders were reaping huge windfall profits, they rushed to buy and develop land. And sure enough, those new houses were ready just as buyers were retreating to the sidelines because they could no longer afford to buy a home. That vast overhang of unsold homes is what's driving down prices today.

AND WHILE SUPPLY LAGS, DEMAND SAGS.

Historically, the oil market has under-anticipated the amount of conservation brought on by high prices," says [Stephen] Brown [an economist with the Dallas Federal Reserve]. Sales of big cars are collapsing; Americans are cutting down on driving. The airlines are scaling back flights.

We've learned another important lesson from the housing market: The longer prices stay stratospheric, the worse the eventual crash - simply because the higher the prices and bigger the profit margins, the bigger the incentive to over-produce.

It's even possible that, a few years hence, we could see a sustained period of plentiful oil supplies and low prices, meaning $50 or below.

A similar scenario occurred following the price explosion in the 1970s and early 1980s. The price spike caused the world to cut back sharply on oil consumption. By the mid-80s, oil prices had fallen from almost $40 to around $15. They remained extremely low for two decades.

It's impossible to predict how the adjustment this time will take shape, just as it was in housing. There the surge in supply came in places the experts swore there was "no supply," and wouldn't be any. Builders found a way to extend vast tracts of homes into California's Inland Empire and Central Valley, and even build "in-fill" projects near the densely-populated coasts.

WILL AMERICA BE A DEPLETING SHRINE TO PROFLIGACY OR AN ADVANCING MODEL OF ENERGY CONSERVATION AND EFFICIENCY?

In the 1970s the United States had an opportunity to remake itself into a post-hydrocarbon economy. It could have developed, through incentives and subsidies, alternative energy sources and efficient and available public transportation. But it did not.

America has the opportunity again. The lesson will likely again go unlearned.

TALKING, AND MORE FREQUENTLY, WALKING IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

SPANISH PARLIAMENT MOVES TO EXTEND RIGHTS TO LIFE AND FREEDOM TO GREAT APES

2008-07-01T18:05:00.000-07:00

An interesting story from Spain. The Spanish Parliament has passed resolutions which will recognize the rights of our evolutionary "cousins", the Great Apes.

The resolutions, expected to become law, will require Spain to comply with the Great Ape Declaration. The Great Ape Declaration provides as follows:

We demand the extension of the community of equals to include all great apes: human beings, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orang-utans.

The community of equals is the moral community within which we accept certain basic moral principles or rights as governing our relations with each other and enforceable at law. Among these principles or rights are the following:

1. The Right to Life
The lives of members of the community of equals are to be protected. Members of the community of equals may not be killed except in very strictly defined circumstances, for example, self-defense.

2. The Protection of Individual Liberty
Members of the community of equals are not to be arbitrarily deprived of their liberty; if they should be imprisoned without due legal process, they have the right to immediate release. The detention of those who have not been convicted of any crime, or of those who are not criminally liable, should be allowed only where it can be shown to be for their own good, or necessary to protect the public from a member of the community who would clearly be a danger to others if at liberty. In such cases, members of the community of equals must have the right to appeal, either directly or, if they lack the relevant capacity, through an advocate, to a judicial tribunal.

3. The Prohibition of Torture
The deliberate infliction of severe pain on a member of the community of equals, either wantonly or for an alleged benefit to others, is regarded as torture, and is wrong.

Great apes, which include human beings, gorillas, orang-utans, chimpanzees and bonobos, descended from a common ancestor. That evolutionary line split into orangs and the line that includes chimps, gorillas and humans about 15 million years ago.

The line that includes humans and chimps split from gorilla ancestors approximately 9million years ago. Humans and chimps then split from their common ancestor about 5-6 million years ago.

The Author has long believed that Great Apes deserve rights similar to human beings. He considers the killing of great apes murder, actions that destroy or appropriate their living space or resources genocide, and the consumption of their flesh cannibalism.

The Author does not believe the extension of such rights to Great Apes will be in any sense a denigration or limitation of human rights. It is to be done because it is the right thing to do.

THE DESERT OF THE REAL COMPLIES IN ALL RESPECTS WITH THE GREAT APE DECLARATION!

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

2008-06-30T14:59:00.000-07:00

One hundred years ago today, June 30th, 1908, the Tunguska Event occurred. A comet or a meteorite exploded in the air over Siberia with the force of a nuclear explosion.

The blast leveled 2150 square kilometers.

The event garnered little interest at the time and was not even investigated until the 1920s. However, it is believed that the events of the Russian Revolution delayed the investigation.

UP IN THE SKY OVER THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

BOB CRANE... WITH FOND AND CHASTE REMEMBRANCE.

2008-06-29T15:20:00.000-07:00